By Jove!

I woke early this morning to a great twilight view of Jupiter, or 'Jove' as the Romans liked to call it, over the eastern horizon. It was a welcome coincidence because I had been studying Antarctic exploration late last night and it featured on a couple of occasions.

The wonderfully named Apsley Cherry-Garrard wrote the following in his strongly titled account, 'The Worst Journey in the World',

"Generally we steered by Jupiter, and I never see him now without recalling his friendship in those days!"

On January 27 1912 Robert Falcon Scott, wrote,

"A long way to go, and, by Jove, this is tremendous labour." Poor soul survived for another two months after that before finally succumbing on the 29th March. His frozen fingers managed this final entry in his journal, 'For God's sake look after our People.'

'By Jove!' That, in two words, does a good job of encapsulating the spirit of the age and those that chose to risk their lives in such a way. I will endeavour (another good exploration word) to use it regularly for a few days as a tribute. There is a short explanation of its origin as an exclamation here.

Go South

Twilight at either end of the day is a good time to look south this month. At dusk Jupiter is the first night object to appear, narrowly but clearly, above the southern horizon. This morning at sunrise Sirius was the last object to disappear, again it was due south. I took these two pictures at 6.30am, one looking east showing the red dawn. The other looking south. It is not a fascinating photo of Sirius but it does at least show that there is nothing else visible around it.

On a tangent, the expression 'go south' is often used to mean something is past its best. 'Tottenham seem to have gone south under Ramos' influence.' In the US it was more usually 'gone west', but even there south seems to be winning through. If you are something of a verbal sleuth there is a thorough tour of these expressions here.

The Friendly Moon

Last night was one of those occasions where the moon was the natural navigator's best option. At about 10pm the sky overhead was overcast with broken clouds down to nearer the horizon. The western glow of dusk was gone and the only objects that could be seen were Jupiter and the three-quarter Moon. The cloud meant no Polaris, and the bright moon in the only patch of open sky blotted out the other stars. The Moon plays hard to get at first but on nights like this it can be a very good friend.