I was walking home last night, about the time I would have been going on watch last week. I am still tired and my body hasn’t fully recovered. But I was walking home, walking south, and looked up to see the two bright “stars” that I had used to steer by. From our position at sea (during my watch at least) they were bearing between 200 and 225 degrees magnetic.
I wrote down in my deck log - “you really need to learn more about the stars - it helps being out in the night sky” and remember wondering whether I could come home, and through a sort of reversed equation of finding location (because I know where we were) figure out what those stars were? I just downloaded the sky chart and am trying to figure out what my bright stars were - Altair and Vega are certainly in the running - but I think they were planets (no twinkle twinkle). Of course it could have been the autumn star - Fomalhaut. Apparently (and wouldn’t THIS have been good to know) is due south.
The star chart also pointed out that while we were sailing the moon was full and at perigee and that the November full moon is called a Frosty Moon or a Beaver Moon. I also listened to a pretty cool podcast about the whole thing at Sky and Telescope’s monthly skycast.
Here is what the site StarDate had to say about the night sky:
November 2008
The dazzling constellations of winter begin to creep into prime evening viewing time during the longer, cooler nights of November. Beautiful Orion rises in mid-evening early in the month, but by early evening at month’s end. Taurus, the bull, charges into view ahead of Orion, with Gemini, the twins, rising about the same time as Orion, but farther north. The Dog Star, Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, follows the hunter in late evening. A special late-month treat is the pairing of Venus and Jupiter in the southwest at sunset. The crescent Moon closes in on them on the 30th, creating an especially striking tableau.
So I have to go out tonight and see if I can figure out whether what I saw were stars or Venus and Jupiter - seems like they were far too high in the sky - but I suppose since I was steering to them they couldn’t have been that high. More to come.
“Sea-Fever”
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)
