The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

My thanks to Mark Evans who not only flew over from Oman for a course, but also sent me this great time lapse photo from Oman.

Mark is the General Manager of Outward Bound Oman, which does not sound like the worst job in the world to me! Outward Bound Oman, under Mark’s leadership, is teaching young Omanis many outdoor skills, including traditional methods of desert navigation.

Time for a bit of fun. Which way are we looking in this picture and why?

Answers by email please. I’ll post the correct answer in a couple of days.

Update.12/05/11.

We are looking just south of west. approx 255 degrees. Orion’s belt can be seen setting about one third the way in from the right. The arcing to the right is anticlockwise around the North Celestial Pole, to the left the stars are arcing clockwise around the South Celestial…

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Last night was the inaugural meeting of the Night Navigators Club. This is a ‘loyalty club’ for all those who have been on any one of my courses in the past – or those who come on one in the future.

For three years I have been pondering how to solve a tricky riddle. There are so many people who would love to learn about the night sky, but it is very hard to organise an outdoor course for this in this country because the weather is so unreliable. I need to sort the dates for my courses at least a few weeks in advance and it is impossible to predict the conditions that far away. Also, the best times of the year for star, moon and planet-gazing are not the best times for weather. Mid-summer is great for many outdoor activities, but with the late sunsets it is not…

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We are bearing down on stargazing-season. It is getting dark early enough in the evenings, staying dark long enough in the mornings and doesn’t yet freeze you for the privilege.

This morning I enjoyed a view of Orion, Sirius, Leo, which has just marched ahead of the dawn sun now, and a few other players. I took this photo of Orion’s Sword hanging down to the left (eastern) side of a large beech tree and dangling down towards the south, as it does. The ‘smudge’ in the middle is the Great Nebula in Orion, also known less romantically as ‘M42′. It is a ‘stellar nursery’ where new stars are born. Would a more appropriate term not be a ‘stellar maternity ward’?

On a different subject, my best wishes and good luck to Kevin Shannon who is attempting a zero-emissions circumnavigation of the globe. He asked me for my thoughts,…

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My thanks to Kevan Hubberd for sending in the idea about using Orion’s Sword as a way of finding south.

Orion’s Sword can be seen in the image to the left as the short vertical line of ‘stars’ under Orion’s Belt.

The Sword does indeed point to a spot on the horizon that is close to due south when the Sword is near vertical (as in this image), but it is a less dependable guide when it is well off-vertical, ie. when it is lower in the sky.

Technical bit for natural navigation zealots only: The reason that the Sword is more accurate when vertical is that it makes a line in the sky that is parallel to the line towards the south celestial pole. When vertical this line intersects with the horizon at a point very close to due south, but at times when the sword is closer…

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My thanks to Stuart Goring for sending over these great Thomas Hardy celestial quotes. Those who know this blog or my book will be aware that I love it when nature and the arts come together. The two following excerpts are taken from ‘Far From the Madding Crowd.’

“He stood and carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the time of night from the altitudes of the stars. The Dog-star and Alderbaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were halfway up the Southern sky ,and between them hung Orion, which gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it soared forth above the rim of the landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine were almost on the meridian: the barren gloomy square of Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west; far away through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia’s chair…

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After an enjoyable private course on Friday – we finished standing in a field looking at Orion, the Plough, Cassiopeia and, of course, Polaris – it was time for a family outing to West Wittering beach early on Saturday.

I adore the Witterings in winter, the barbecue and beach towels may have to stay at home but it is invigorating to get blown along on miles of abandoned sand. In between games of hide and seek amongst the beach huts, games of football on the sticky sand and races to pieces of seaweed, I noticed some interesting patterns in the sand.

This photo shows how there tend to be broad ripples parallel to the coastline itself, but closer inspection reveals more subtle patterns and these can be used to decipher the action of the water and therefore yield more clues to direction. The ripples of sand fan out over…

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For much of the UK, tonight promises to be a good night for some stargazing. With a bit of luck the only clouds for many will be from our breath. The moon, which is four days off full, will outshine many of the stars but should not spoil the party.

If the sky is clear we will get a very good view of Mars in the east in the early evening. Sitting between the constellations of Leo (easy to find) and Cancer (hard to find), it will be rising about thirty degrees north of east at dusk and pass through due east at 8.30pm. By then Orion, below the high moon, will have moved to occupy a large part of the southern sky. If you follow Orion’s belt down to nearer the horizon then low in the southeast you will see the brightest star of them…

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…and he was high in the sky, which reminded me of one of the simplest and most beautiful of natural navigational celestial techiques. Orion is a great help in finding East or West, but there is a method for finding direction that works even if you have no idea what object you are looking at in the sky. It takes time to apply accurately, but it can be used anywhere in the world and applies to all the stars, the moon, the sun and all the planets – even if you have no idea which one you are looking at.

The moment a celestial object reaches its highest point in the sky it will be due north or south. Simples! As those meerkats like to say. Well, the principle is beautifully simple, but the practice is a bit more involved. Hence the use of shadow sticks, and sextants for that…

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I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. Some compensation was to be found outside, with a beautiful view of Orion, Sirius and Venus. All three have historically had some significance. Both Orion and Sirius have been used as seasonal markers, the ‘heliacal rising’ of Sirius being used as a forecast for flooding of the Nile in ancient Egypt. Orion is still known as a winter constellation in the northern hemisphere. The references to Venus are legion and include its use by the Maya to time the start of wars (see Anthony Aveni’s excellent book, ‘People and the Sky‘, for more on that.)

The picture is of Venus rising in the east-northeast just before five this morning, it took many attempts to get this photo as a cold wind kept rattling the tripod and its owner.

One of the many aspects…

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Yesterday afternoon was spent doing some private training in Angmering Park near Arundel, West Sussex. I did not need to be a native American Indian to realise that this is a very horsey part of the world. There is a stud at the heart of the park and the well churned ground bears witness to a lot of hooves.

We were put through a gentle rinse and spin cycle as what felt like typical cold front conditions mixed things up, sunshine and cold rain wrestling each other throughout an enjoyable afternoon. The skies matured into a more settled pattern towards the end of the day and allowed us a clear view of an incandescent Venus and later the stars, including the ones we needed most: the plough, polaris, auriga, Cassiopeia and Orion.