The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

Happy Winter Solstice One and All!

Here’s an interesting solstice fact for you: the Earth is actually receiving more solar radiation at this time of year than at any other time. This is because the Earth does not orbit the sun in a circle, but in an ellipse. In the northern hemisphere winter the Earth is at its closest to the sun, a point called ‘perihelion’, but in summer it is at its furthest point, or ‘aphelion’.

The Guardian have published a little article on the timing of the winter solstice.

However, my favourite solstice image is on a different page. The same technique used in the photo on that page, from the same position, but on the summer solstice would probably not catch the sun at all, or perhaps just a glimpse of it in the top corners.

At this time of year the sun is always…

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As promised, here is a more detailed update on my short time in Oman last week. My main reason for being there was to train the Omani Outward Bound instructors. In the short time available I wanted to give them a decent understanding of how to use nature’s clues to find their way in the desert. Just as importantly, I needed to give them the techniques and knowledge they could pass onto their future students.

We started with theory indoors at the offices of Outward Bound Oman, with the help of planetarium software and makeshift whiteboards (paper Sellotaped to a cupboard). After three hours of theory, it was time to head out in 4x4s for a 3 hour drive into the desert, for some more practical training.

We tracked the sun down to the horizon and confirmed that it had indeed set a good 15 degrees south of west.…

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Thank you to everyone who came to the course at the Royal Geographical Society on Friday. Also to those who came to the talk and walk on Saturday and to Rohan for organising and sponsoring the event.

I have just returned from a wonderful two days in the desert in Oman, where I have been teaching a group of Outward Bound Oman instructors some techniques for them to pass on to their students. In the picture above we are marking out the shadows from a stick in the sand.

We also looked at the clues in the dunes, the trees and smaller plants, the weather, the stars, moon and planets and many other things which I will be revisiting here on the blog when the desert dust falls off my rucksack and settles a bit.

One of the many highlights of the short trip was a chance…

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Last night I divided my time between two very different arenas of the modern human experience. I watched dross on TV, including some Jonathan Dross himself, but then I found the antidote to such inanity. I nipped out regularly to put markers down in the snow, as I watched the moon’s shadows march west across the white.

I took some photos of the results of my moon shadow stick, together with a perfect north-south line, which I will be using on my Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation courses. Yes, that is a bit of a tease, but those who come on the courses part with £105 and I make sure that it includes plenty of exclusive material, not least dozens of images that cannot be seen anywhere else.

As compensation, I have posted these photos that I also took yesterday, of snow clinging in long thin strips to the…

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Just saw and managed to snap a beautiful 22 degree moon halo. They are caused by the moon’s light refracting through the ice crystals in the high clouds. In this case almost certainly thin cirrus clouds which are presaging the arrival of bad weather. Halos are not the same as moonbows, although they are often called that in error.

Will write more about them tomorrow if I get the chance, but wanted to get the photo up while I could.

Awoke this morning and took the newest member of the family, a miniature Schnauzer puppy called Dreyfus, out for his constitutional.

Then it was time to look southeast and to watch Virgo melt back into the dawn light as Venus rose above the thin slither of a waning crescent moon. Below them pink and orange light bounced through under the dark blue sky and above the white of the hills.

My kind of music. Probably what Dreyfus was thinking too.

The tops of the trees are just visible in silhouette against the clouds that are lit up by the moon. That is Jupiter to the right.

Once more my pre-dawn ‘Batsense’ kicked in and I awoke before five with an urgent desire to go outside. It was not the pressure on my bladder, I do not think, but the idyllic conditions and night sky players that were beckoning me.

Orion and his sword were first to offer their greetings and then I noticed Jupiter still visible in the southwest. Sirius, Betelgeuse, Capella, the Plough and Polaris sketched out some order in the celestial sphere.

The moon was close to setting and was lighting up rows of fluffy cumulus clouds on their western edges. As time passed the clouds lost their bright white western edges, but gained pink and orange eastern ones. They moved sedately towards the northeast, signalling the start to a fine day. (Photo to the right was taken a few minutes ago.)

BBC Devon have a delightful story about the sculptor, Marcus Vergette, on their section of the BBC website.

Marcus is sculpting a series of ‘tidal bells’ that will ring out at high tide around the country. There is no mention of springs or neaps in the article, so I’m presuming the bells are being placed low enough to ring at a neap tide (the narrowest range between high and low).

In the book I touch on the fact that humans have become very adept at approximating tidal behaviour, but it is still impossible to predict tidal times or heights with absolute precision. The tides are influenced by the orbits of the Moon about the Earth of course, but also very significantly by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, which fewer people realise. These are the factors that are relatively easy to predict. The effects of…

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I returned from a family trip to Brittany yesterday and what better welcome back than to come downstairs this morning to find Jupiter beaming at me through a skylight. It is a firm fixture in the early morning sky now and consequently is being confused by many for Venus. If a bright white object is visible when it is too light to see many stars then you are likely looking at Jupiter or Venus, and if the sun is more than fifty degrees away (five extended fist-widths) then that narrows it to Jupiter. This is an exercise you only need to do irregularly since it will appear in the same part of the sky at the same time for many days.

Since Venus is relatively close to the sun and is only visible as a bright object when the sun is below the horizon, it follows that Venus is normally…

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