View Full Version : Why use Celestial Navigation?
I know that we’ve had a couple of threads on here about celestial navigation, but is it something we should still worry about learning and passing on to our children? In this day and age of gadgets the world has become a much smaller place, how often do we need to look up into the sky and say….”ahh, that’s there, that’s over there, so this is the way to go” Ahs it a practical use or do we learn it because it’s an old skill?
TheViking
25-02-2005, 14:16
Learning how to find north with the Big Dipper is useful IMO and something i teach everybody when I get the chance. :-) A GPS can fail or run out of batteries, and thats a fact, cause it's electronics. The star method will never fail.
Funnily enough, and I really don't know the reason for this, but whenever I'm out overnight and the cloud cover permits, I always orientate myself by the north star. I always carry a compass, have a compass on my suunto,and yet ,it's the stars for me. If i'm doing map work then of course I would use the compass but just to orientate myself to the area the stars are accurate enough and need only a glance upwards. Just feels right.
Direction finding/orientation using Polaris is pretty essential and should be in everyone's repertoire, I think.
Actually working out your latitude and longitude with sextant, watch, almanac etc is rather different - quite tricky at sea and even more so on land. Not many people can do it. I admire those who can.
You can get your approximate latititude by measuring the angle of Polaris to the horizon. You could use a compass and a straight edge, or a protractor. If your compass has a clinometer it's a doddle. Of course, if you are one degree out...thats sixty nautical miles of error, IIRC correctly.
Keith_Beef
25-02-2005, 14:35
Portable GPS gadgets are OK until the batteries fail. Or the units gets dropped and broken. Or until the satelites are switched off (but maybe Galileo will be less prone to downgrading).
A compass is great, until you break or lose it.
Polaris is reliable; always there and always indicating true North. But it's sometimes hidden by the clouds, and you can't see it in the daytime.
Supposedly, pointing the hour hand of your watch to the sun will find south for you (half the angle between the hour hand and the minute hand). But this doesn't work so well on cloudy days, when the sun'd light is so diffused that you can't even use shadows to find out where the sun is.
What I'm getting at, is that there is no "ultimate best way". It's good to know more than one way to skin a cat.
Keith.
Chip Dale
25-02-2005, 14:44
I too, have found myself draw to the skies on clear night. Having had GPS fail on me from time to time and traveled over rich iron deposits which have thrown my compass into a "useless liquid filled bubble with a floating needle" i have found solace in the fact that i can direction find, with the use of the heavens. Even if i am un-shaw of my exact location.
When growing up in Wales, I always remember looking into the night sky and knowing exactly what I was looking at............................ .....Clouds!! :umbrella:
Now I spend time under slightly dryer skies, I have more opportunity to appreciate the celestial bodies. As Steve A says, it's there and you don't even need to get your hands out of your pockets.
arctic hobo
25-02-2005, 16:58
Like pretty much everyone else here I think it's an essential skill, although less easy than you'd think. Finding north is fine, but if you have to go say 150 degrees it's hard to orientate yourself, especially if there are no landmarks. In the arctic we used (use?) it most of the time as with 24 hour darkness there's no reason why not, and it saves your hands for your ski sticks and rifle. Plus the further north you go the less accurate your compass is. A compass is great for backup, but in low temperatures you may find the compass fluid freezes (mine did and broke :roll:). A cheap non-fluid compass is an important backup, as in the mountains you can be in cloud for weeks.
In more temperate climes a compass is of course the easiest way, and by no means un-bushcrafty: the Vikings used a "lodestone" (magnetic rock) compass for navigation.
Doc having been taught Sextants before (in fact I am qualified to teach it), I cannot see how you could use it on land. You need a perfect horizon fix - on the sea you're at sea level looking at a sea level horizon. Throw land in and you'll be all over the place! :?:
Fallow Way
25-02-2005, 17:14
why learn anything as there is a easy option for all things today?
I belive that it is enough to learn a skill if soley for keeping that skill alive, irrespective of the efficiency/recurrance of its use.
With regards to star-craft I use it every night. I dont need to rummage through my pockets to find a compass and head torch, i flick my eyes up through the canopy and know my way home.
It is the same for during the day, if i need to point someone in the right direction, i dont even need to look up from my planting, i know where the sun is and can give a pretty accurate pointer based on that.
On land you use a bubble sextant or artificial horizon, such as a bowl of mercury.
Not as handy as a GPS....!
On land you use a bubble sextant or artificial horizon, such as a bowl of mercury.
and an altimeter to adjust for your height above sea level :shock:
there're some great articles on the subject of overland exploration and early map makers available on the net. i just can't seem to find 'em at the mo'
like alot of things, the skills aren't really useable on this little island, but interesting none the less.
cheers, and.
It's worth learning, whilst in the forces I used to take a bearing onto a star and march on it for 15 minutes, but if you take your eye of it and look back a few minutes later it is worth knowing which star in which constellation you were marching on.
It is also a fundamental skill, as is all navigation ,if you understand this then it is yet another string to your bow and breaks the stranglehold that technology seems to have on the world. As people said before technology can fail, so can stars, but stars don't have a 24hr battery life and you can't drop them.
Then of course we have the biggest of celestial objects (from our perspective) that Keith mentioned :biggthump , the sun, celestial navigation isn't just at night :-)
greg2935
25-02-2005, 19:02
To my mind because it is easier to see at night (when cloudless obviously!) than a compass, and there is a load of folklore associated with each constellation. Also during bad sun spot activity, compasses can misalign, GPS is shut down (they shut down all satellites during ion storms to protect them), you'll see a great northen lights show though!
It's surprising how many people know nothing about astronomy/the sun. Not even that the sun rises in the east, or that the earth goes round the sun.
A bit of astronomy is useful - you better understand how days shorten, the solstice, moonstate, seasons, moon and tides, astronavigation, latitude/longitude and how it relates to time zones, degrees/minutes and nautical miles, radio propagation and the 11 year sunspot cycle. When outdoors you can see some of Jupiter's moons with even small binos, and I can just make out saturns rings with a 20x50 telescope - the sort of thing you might well carry in your outfit.
I'd like to write an article on Astronomy for the Outdoorsman but apart from the lack of time, I don't really know it well enough to teach, and my understanding is rather superficial in places.
As somebody else mentioned, there are numerous ways of finding north, some more accurately than others. I have even used moss growing on a tree to get a general direction before, although its accuracy must be questioned!
Although I think GPS are amazing inventions, and owning an old Garmin 12 aswell, I still like to use my core navigation skills, and only use GPS as a verifying tool. If you rely on GPS and it goes wrong, either due to battery failure or breakage, and you don't have a good grasp of map and compass navigation, you are screwed.
Finding north with an analogue watch is very interesting, and ensuring the watch is accurate so will your direction. Stars are good, although you have to be on top of the knowledge, there can't be any grey areas. They were used for centuries by our forefathers, and it worked for them. I would like to get a greater knowledge of celestial navigation, if anybody can send me to a good book or website, it would be greatly appreciated.
I've found most people I've talked to down here don't know you can use the Southern Cross to find due south. Its not as easy as using Polaris to find north but it works. Besides, the southern sky is amazingly beautiful at night.
I'm far enough south that Polaris is below the horizon. The Big dipper makes an appearance upsidedown and low on the horizon. Its usually only partly visible. You can make out the pointer stars and still kind of make out where the north star should be, down below a rice paddy or something. It does help to orient yourself if you've already found south using the Southern Cross. Mac
R-Bowskill
28-02-2005, 10:41
The short answer is:
Because I can.
Also it's fun and challenging. One of the few bushcraft skills that it's possible to test yourself in a quantifiable way to find out how well you're doing it. You can decide on a bearing, try finding it by the sun or stars and then use a compass to see how many degrees off you are.
In the Negev desert I found I could tell the time to within a minuite by the height of the sun above the mountains of Jordan. Which meant I didn't have to wear a watch and get the face scratched by the flinty ground I was digging.
On top of that the best places to see the sky in Britain are areas well away from towns which means they are likely to be good for bushcraft anyway. I got a nice view of the pliades with a pair of pocket 10X bino's during the East Anglia Meetup in February, didn't have to contend with the street lights where I live like I usually do with my scope.
brucemacdonald
28-02-2005, 11:21
I've got to agree with everyone here - don't knock astronavigation just because we now have magnetic compasses and GPS which are known to fail.
Our ancestors would navigate by the stars, and would measure the year by them. Astronavigation is one of our few direct links with the ancient past and for that reason alone bushcrafters should do it. And as Greg points out there are also many stories associated with the constellations.
Next time I go to Ashdown (weather permitting) I would like to bring my telescope to show people a few of the sights. The night sky is every bit a wonder of nature as the mountains, forests and lakes on Earth.
Best wishes
Bruce
arctic hobo
28-02-2005, 17:01
On top of that the best places to see the sky in Britain are areas well away from towns which means they are likely to be good for bushcraft anyway. I got a nice view of the pliades with a pair of pocket 10X bino's during the East Anglia Meetup in February, didn't have to contend with the street lights where I live like I usually do with my scope.
This is off topic but might interest some of you: I read in New Scientist a few years ago about an astronomer who went on a tour to popularise astronomy in children. He went around primary schools in New York, showing them slides of the constellations and observatories. After one of the lectures a teacher took him aside and said that she thought it best if he told the children that the slides were computer simulations. He stared back at her, baffled - they had simply been photographs from his own back garden. It transpired that neither the teacher nor any of the 60 or so pupils had ever seen the stars.
Light pollution is a major problem for a lot of people in the Uk, a few years ago a campaign was started to try and educate local authorities on the benefit of none wasteful lighting systems ie ones that throw light where people need/want it and not all over the place.
I bet not many people in the uk have seen the Milky Way or looked through a telescope and appreciated just how many stars are up there and what beauty they are missing.
bambodoggy
28-02-2005, 17:28
I know that we’ve had a couple of threads on here about celestial navigation, but is it something we should still worry about learning and passing on to our children? In this day and age of gadgets the world has become a much smaller place, how often do we need to look up into the sky and say….”ahh, that’s there, that’s over there, so this is the way to go” Ahs it a practical use or do we learn it because it’s an old skill?
When I joined the TA and was re-taught basic map reading the subject of using the stars came up and our staff nco took us outside...it turned out I knew more than he did about it (which he took very well unlike some I know and allowed me to impart my knowledge on the group) but just the fact that it came up impressed me... we went on to learn micro-navigation to pin point accuracy for various military tasks that required it but I was still impressed that they bothered to go right back to basics to teach everybody the same thing...ok I had to sit through lectures that I already understood from cubs, scouts, Cadets and my MLTB Summer leaders but hey...it never hurts to get a refresher! :o):
Although I think GPS are amazing inventions, and owning an old Garmin 12 aswell, I still like to use my core navigation skills, and only use GPS as a verifying tool. If you rely on GPS and it goes wrong, either due to battery failure or breakage, and you don't have a good grasp of map and compass navigation, you are screwed.
Finding north with an analogue watch is very interesting, and ensuring the watch is accurate so will your direction. Stars are good, although you have to be on top of the knowledge, there can't be any grey areas. They were used for centuries by our forefathers, and it worked for them. I would like to get a greater knowledge of celestial navigation, if anybody can send me to a good book or website, it would be greatly appreciated.
I agree, I've always used a compass and maps where available. On occasions I have also made my own map. I bought a GPS unit the other week. It's a great piece of kit but like you say, a flat battery or some damage and you're stranded. I'll still use my compass first GPS second! :newbie:
The trick with the hour hand of a watch is that with the hour hand pointed at the sun, south is halfway between the hour hand and twelve o'clock on the watch face. The watch needs to be on GMT. Might not work well if it's a digital watch :)
Kirruth, it all depends what hemisphere you are in!!
brynbach
16-04-2005, 09:40
I would like to get a greater knowledge of celestial navigation, if anybody can send me to a good book or website, it would be greatly appreciated.
I've recently got a great book by Harold Gatty - Finding Your Way WIthout Map or Compass. It covers all aspects using eyes. ears, smell, reflections, wind, trees and plants, animals, sun, moon and stars etc etc.
Got mine from www.abe.com (http://www.abe.com)
Hope this helps
cheers
Carl
Great Pebble
16-04-2005, 19:55
Celestial navigation is a great skill to have. I won't say essential because I [i]don't/i] reckon it is. But (one of these in a lot of my posts) it's likely to let you down when you might need it most, in really crap weather. Compasses, loads of them.
I feel that a big part of "camping" however you do it , is being under the stars . You can literaly lose hours looking into them . Also i look at navigation by the stars in almost the same way as we were taught maths at skool , We were allowed to use a calculator (or in this case compass) but you had to give an aproximate margine so you new it wasnt leading you up the garden path !! If you know where north is , either by stars or moss etc. then you should know roughly which direction you should be traveling in . If your compass or gps points in roughly the same direction as your estimation then you know your headed the right way !
Pumbaa
ChrisKavanaugh
17-04-2005, 02:49
"Second star on the right, then straight on till morning" works a lot better than "Wendy, when your done stitching my shadow nick me some double A batteries for my GPS." I remember when the Coast Guard dropped formal instruction with the sextant. I watched this new ensign run his career aground laughing at the vintage brass sextant in it's velvet lined mahogany box. It was the skipper's prize possession and he personally double checked our GPS position AND the WW2 vintage issue sextants we few still took reassuring shoots with among the video game laughingly called a bridge. Personally, I go home to purge myself of all this deux ex machina gadgetry. The stars are part of that wonder and bending myself to their ancient paterns is no different than snuggling deep into a leaf shelter.
Kirruth, it all depends what hemisphere you are in!!
It does: the same trick points north in the Southern Hemisphere (which is where I learned it), but you point 12 at the sun and go half the angle to the hour hand.
The stars are funny down there too :)
Eric_Methven
25-04-2005, 21:21
I like using a cross staff to find latitude. It was invented in the twelvth century and was a precursor to an astrolabe which was a precursor to the sextant. You can make a cross staff from five sticks in about an hour, and with mine, I can find any latitude from equator to the poles. Great fun to make, and a great feeling of satisfaction when double checked with a GPS and you find you are spot on. They are also a great way of teaching kids about celestial navigation.
Eric
Have you got any pictures or information on how to make/use them ?
I quite fancy having a go at that .
Cheers
Pumbaa
Have you got any pictures or information on how to make/use them ?
I quite fancy having a go at that .
Cheers
Pumbaa
This site any good for a start? My head is fizzing trying to remember the basic maths!
But it does look quite good, just need to be in the mood to study it.
Moonraker
26-04-2005, 01:24
Have you got any pictures or information on how to make/use them ?
I quite fancy having a go at that .
Cheers
PumbaaHere you go Chris:
"From Stargazers to Starships" by David P. Stern - The Cross Staff (http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Scrostaf.htm)
http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Sfigs/Crstaf5.gif
Another nice site with instructions how to make a simple wooden one:
Making a Simple Cross-Staff (http://www.humboldt.edu/~rap1/EarlySciInstSite/Instruments/X-Staff/X-staff.html)
http://www.humboldt.edu/~rap1/EarlySciInstSite/Instruments/X-Staff/ESI.x-pcs.jpg
Or alternatively try making a Kamal "The Kamal was used by Arab sailors since ancient times."
The Kamal - Richard A. Paselk (http://www.humboldt.edu/~rap1/EarlySciInstSite/Instruments/X-Staff/ESI.Kamal.htm)
http://www.humboldt.edu/~rap1/EarlySciInstSite/Instruments/X-Staff/ESI.Kamal.jpg
Looks more bushcrafty to me :) Perhaps not quite so useful though?
Simon
Eric_Methven
26-04-2005, 10:07
A cross staff is easy enough to make. I take a piece of wood 3/4" square or so, and about 36" long. Then I make four cross pieces from strips of thin wood 1/4" thick by 2" wide. The lengths are important. The smallest is 21/2" long, the next is 5" followed by 10" and lastly a piece 20" long. I make a square hole in the centre big enough for the long stick to fit through so it slides up and down without sticking. On the back of each crosspiece I glue a small block again with a square hole so the crosspiece doesn't wobble when on the stick.
With my method you don't need the math to work out your latitude, I do it so the degrees are marked on the stick already. There are four sides to the stick, one for each of the crosspieces. The smallest one goes from two dgrees up to forty degrees, the five inch one goes from twenty degrees up to sixty, the ten inch crosspiece goes from thirty to eighty degrees and the twenty inch goes from forty to ninety degrees.
To use it, you fit the crosspiece to the stick, and hold the end of the stick up to your eye. You slide the crosspiece down the stick until the bottom edge of the crosspiece lines up with the horizon and the top edge of the crosspiece lines up with polaris. Then you take the reading off the stick where the crosspiece intersects it.
When you reach a latitude where you can't get a reading, you change to either a smaller crosspiece (if sailing south) or larger crosspiece (if sailing north).
So, to sumarise, you have a square stick with scales marked on all four sides. You have a crosspiece for each scale, four in all that you use depending on your latitude. The crosspieces are stiffened on the back with a block of wood to give stability on the stick.
To mark the scale you need to do the following:
Take a sheet of wallpaper lining paper and draw a line down one edge. Make it as long as the stick.
At one end of the line, mark it off as the eye end and the other mark off as polaris end.
At the eye end, take a protractor and draw lines outward every 5 degrees, so there are a series of equally spaced lines radiating out from the end of the line at the eye end of the paper. These lines will represent spacings of ten degrees on the stick. The reason for five degree spacings representing ten degrees on the stick is that we are only measuring half of the crosspiece, so we have to double up. (You'll see what I mean when you try it).
Once the degrees are drawn, mark a line parallel to the first line you drew, exactly half the length of the crosspiece, so the first will be 11/4" in from the main line. The next will be 21/2" in followed by a line 5" in and finally a line drawn 10" in.
Place the stick on the 11/4" line and mark where the line intersects with the degree lines. With five degrees being the radiating line nearest the original line, and ninety degree line being at forty five real degrees to the original line (if that sounds confusing remember that five real degrees is representing ten degrees on the stick, because we are only measuring one half of it.)
Once the intersection lines are marked, and the degrees noted, turn the stick over a quarter turn and do the same on the next line out, the 21/2" line representing the five inch crosspiece. Mark once again where the radiating lines intersect the parallel line and so on until all four side of the stick are marked off in varying degrees.
The best way to keep these marks from wearing away is to cut nicks across the stick with a knife and either stamp the degrees into the wood or use a dremel with an engraving bit to permanently mark the wood with the degrees.
Once made, give all pieces a good wax with beeswax to protect the wood and help with smooth sliding of the crosspiece.
So, to use the thing, you hold the stick up to your eye and slide the crospiece up or down until the bottom is on the horizon and the top is on polaris and read off the degrees on the stick. If you are on the equator, polaris will look like it is on the horizon so you'd have the smallest crosspiece way out on the end of the stick. If on the other hand you are up north and polaris is right above you, you'll need the longest crosspiece and it will be nearer your face when you take the measurement.
I really hope that is clear, I'm just typing it all from memory. Just ask if you need clarification on any aspect of it.
Oh yes, nearly forgot. This instrument is for astral navigation only. Never try to take a sun sighting with it or you'll end up with retinal burns. There's a different kind of cross staff for sun sighting that you use with your back to the sun and rely on the shaddow cast to give the reading, but that's for another day.
Eric
Moonraker
26-04-2005, 10:34
Great info!. Thanks Eric :) I know what I will be making this weekend ;)
Simon
Thanks I am going to have to give that a go .
Do you think that the size of the crossed sticks makes any difference ? I was thinking of a pocket sized one !
Pumbaa
Eric_Methven
26-04-2005, 11:48
Pumbaa, you can make a pocket one but remember to keep the scale relative. Use the method I describe for marking the degrees and use half the crosspiece size when marking off. Also, the smaller it is, the less accurate it will be. The original users needed two people to take a reading as the staff was nearly twelve feet long and they only used one crosspiece.
Eric
the Vikings used a "lodestone" (magnetic rock) compass for navigation.
The use of lodestone by the Vikings is uncertain but possible. Most of their deep sea navigation appears to have been achieved using a bearing dial or "sun compass" (http://etimage.com/viking/english/Medd14/solkompas/examplesSuncompass/example.htm)
I have tried one of these devices myself and they have the advantage of needing no modern equipment to make or set up, all can be done by observation.
arctic hobo
26-04-2005, 22:43
I stand corrected! That's interesting, thanks :)
Living about 40 miles from Manchester and about 10 from Preston, I don’t remember the last time I saw a star (I sometimes see that guy who used to run the supermarket in Coronation Street in the town centre, but that’s about it)
Bloody Light Pollution
arctic hobo
25-05-2005, 19:41
Was treated to "Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass", by Harold Gatty for my birthday... what can I say but A++!
A superb book, all about natural skills with natural features, told by a very knowledgeable man indeed. I recommend this to all of you :) You can find it on Amazon.
jamesraykenney
25-06-2005, 10:32
Like pretty much everyone else here I think it's an essential skill, although less easy than you'd think. Finding north is fine, but if you have to go say 150 degrees it's hard to orientate yourself, especially if there are no landmarks. In the arctic we used (use?) it most of the time as with 24 hour darkness there's no reason why not, and it saves your hands for your ski sticks and rifle. Plus the further north you go the less accurate your compass is. A compass is great for backup, but in low temperatures you may find the compass fluid freezes (mine did and broke :roll:). A cheap non-fluid compass is an important backup, as in the mountains you can be in cloud for weeks.
In more temperate climes a compass is of course the easiest way, and by no means un-bushcrafty: the Vikings used a "lodestone" (magnetic rock) compass for navigation.
Doc having been taught Sextants before (in fact I am qualified to teach it), I cannot see how you could use it on land. You need a perfect horizon fix - on the sea you're at sea level looking at a sea level horizon. Throw land in and you'll be all over the place! :?:
You were never taught how to use an artificial horizon???
They are very simple and at one time were considered standard equipment!
The use of lodestone by the Vikings is uncertain but possible. Most of their deep sea navigation appears to have been achieved using a bearing dial or "sun compass" (http://etimage.com/viking/english/Medd14/solkompas/examplesSuncompass/example.htm)
I have tried one of these devices myself and they have the advantage of needing no modern equipment to make or set up, all can be done by observation.
I can't really work out how one of these things works from looking at that link... Any clues? :D
Oh, and hello all. :-)
Ok, this is how I would set one up from scratch with no known directions.
First you need a fixed height gnomen on a disk. Mark off a point on the edge (any point will do for now) place it on a level surface in the sun with the mark pointing at a fixed object (this is to make sure all your readings are taken without moving the dial).
Now as the sun rises the sun will cast a long shadow roughly westwards. When the lenght of the shadow is short enough that it's pointjust touches the edge of the dial make a mark at that point. As the day proceeds, the shadow will get shorter and pass the gnomen before starting to get longer again. eventually it will drop of the edge on the eastern side of the dial.
All through this process you are going to mark the point of the shadow's position, say every 30 minutes or so. The western and eastern points are very important, make sure you get them both. You should now be able to joint the dots to make a continuous, curved line from east to west.
The north south line will now be at right angles to an imaginary straight line between the east and west edge marks. These points can now be marked on the dial. All other points can now be marked, geometricly from north / south.
That is how it is made, so how does it work.
Firstly it will only work at aproximately the same latitude and time of year that it was made. So short term use really.
Take the dial, hold it level and rotate it until the length of the shadow is just the right length to touch the curved line. It will of course touch in one of two places so you need to know if it is morning or afternoon. in the morning use the westerly side of the dial and pm. use the easterly side.
When the shadow tip touches the line on the correct side of the dial, all points of the compass should now line up perfectly.
I hope that makes sense to you. I can see it perfectly but I have the andvantage of knowing how it works already. If it still doesn't make sense I'll try and explain it a different way if I can.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense :D
I'm pretty sure I understand the principles there - in fact, I remember as a child thinking that a stick stuck in the ground could be used as a compass in much the same way!
Just one question - what's a gnomen? For once, google appears not to know! ;)
Thanks a lot for that - next time I'm in the sun I'll try it!
The gnomen is the bit that sticks up on a sundial.
On these things it is just a conical pin in the centre of the dial.
BTW. welcome to the forum. You'll find they're a nice bunch of people here, I've found out loads of things from them all.
I do quite a lot of work based around the Vikings with the guys at Murton Park just outside York.
Ogri the trog
25-06-2005, 20:58
Light pollution is a major problem for a lot of people in the Uk, a few years ago a campaign was started to try and educate local authorities on the benefit of none wasteful lighting systems ie ones that throw light where people need/want it and not all over the place.
I bet not many people in the uk have seen the Milky Way or looked through a telescope and appreciated just how many stars are up there and what beauty they are missing.
A friend of mine recently pointed out four of the planets in our solar system that you could see with the naked eye, had we had a pair of bino's or a scope, it would have been five, Neptune (IIRC) was just too far away ;)
At home on a clear night, you can nearly read by starlight, we can regularly see satelites going overhead and the house can cast a shadow in the moonlight - something to amaze visitors.
Ogri the trog
arctic hobo
25-06-2005, 23:01
You were never taught how to use an artificial horizon???
They are very simple and at one time were considered standard equipment!
You don't need one at sea...?
I hope that makes sense to you. I can see it perfectly but I have the andvantage of knowing how it works already. If it still doesn't make sense I'll try and explain it a different way if I can.
I think I have that worked out, but for those of us that are still confused (which might include me) would it be possible for you to put together a tutorial with pictures or diagrams?
I can recommend and excelent book which covers the subject in detail.
Viking Navigation by Søren Thirslund. (Sun-compass guided Norsmen first to America) 2001
ISBN 87-984079-6-1
I got my copy in Norway (http://www.lore-and-saga.co.uk/html/lofotr.html) but I believe you can get it direct from the publishers:
The Viking Compass, S. Thirslund, 342, Teglgårdsveg, DK-3050 HUMLEBÆK, Denmark
I'm not sure I could put together a tutorial but I'd be glad to demonstrate it if I ever get to one of the meet ups. (They all seem to happen when I'm unavailable :( )
thanks Wayland
can you not make the moot at the end of july in south wales??? you'll really be missing out on a great weekend if you cant :(
I'll be on my way to Lofoten (http://www.lore-and-saga.co.uk/html/lofotr.html) then I'm afraid.
Well actually I'm not afraid at all, in fact I'm ecstatic if the truth be known but it does mean I'll miss the moot which is a shame.
Anything post September sounds good to me.
arctic hobo
26-06-2005, 19:04
thanks Wayland
can you not make the moot at the end of july in south wales??? you'll really be missing out on a great weekend if you cant :(
If we ever coincide meetups I can explain.. I've been reading up on my ancient navigation techniques :cool: