10 May 2011 by Tristan Gooley
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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Tags: Betelgeuse, castor, desert navigation, oman, orion, outdoor navigation course, outward bound, pollux, Procyon, Sirius |
19 October 2008 by Tristan Gooley
The incestuous relationship between the stars and mythology is nothing new, but we often overlook how constantly the relationship is rekindled or how fresh some of the stories are. The following paragraph is from Emily Winterburn’s entertaining new book, ‘The Stargazer’s Guide‘.
‘In Orion these [stars] are Rigel, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix; in Canis Major there is Sirius – and even Canis Minor, which essentially consists of only two stars, has the very bright Procyon. These are familiar names, but not perhaps for astronomical reasons. Bellatrix and Sirius are probably better known now as characters in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, while Betelgeuse was the title of a Tim Burton film, albeit with a different spelling [Beetlejuice].
Tags: Bellatrix, Betelgeuse, Canis Major, Canis Minor, myth, Procyon, Sirius, story |
