Using the Stars

Navigating by way of the stars is something that has helped cowboys cross the plateaus and open range and helped sailors from every nationality circumference the globe. Even our military up until the time when Skynet took over I mean they started using radar utilized the stars for navigation purposes. Star charts are super reliable.

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Structures such as the Great Pyramids located in Egypt were built and constructed according to star charts. This allowed for perfect alignment and was an astronomical way to measure buildings that was ahead of its time. Using the stars to help you navigate from point A to point B will be extremely useful in any survival situation.

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The stars do not spell out directions for those that are not informed to the locations in which star constellations are found. With a little reading and research combined with some amateur night time viewing of the sky, one can begin to learn where these constellations are located at on a constant basis. Once you know this navigating using the night stars will be a piece of cake.

 

Very informative post!

I never knew how to use the stars, it's my fault for never researching, but this is very helpful and will definitely help me and many other people in the future!

Thanks again because I notice some stars, like the north star I think it's called but never knew how I can use them to my (advantage?).

 

Well you won't need to know much else than the Polar star, because as long as you can tell where the North is, you can navigate very well at night time. Not much else is visible anyway if there's a full moon out there.
The other constellations are used in determining precicely where you are in relation to the latitude and longitude lines of the earth, and to do that you need to have some really profound knowledge of the movements of stars during the say and the season. You see different stars in the winter and the summer, and the north hemisphere sees different constellations from the south hemisphere at a given time.

Another thing that the nightsky can give you is a weather forecast by looking at the moon. If the moon is yellowish, then expect to have a windy day the next morning.

 

Great info, this is very practical and can be used by anyone. What are the key things to know for a beginner, @Correy just mentioned the Polar star. Any others?

 

I was actually really excited to see a post about this, because I am not good at reading stars at all. I am the one who would get lost in the dark. I tend to stay put in the dark anyway, as I have a very intense fear of the dark. There are some really great tips here! @Correy I had no idea about the weather forecasting from looking at the moon either. That's so helpful! Looks like I need to do some basic research (which is my own fault) and see what I can learn.

Maybe learning this will help me get over part of my darkness phobia, as I'll at least have a better idea as to how to navigate through it.

 

You'll find that nights with a full moon as not pitch black dark, rather you can see a lot of things around you even if you are in the wild. But during a full moon some of the stars near the moon's idol in the sky are dampened by its light. However, even with mild street lights you should be able to see some starts, like most of the navigational constellations and the star sign constellations, as long as you are observing from somewhere where there's not much city smog.

 

Knowing the location of the North Star can be really helpful for some basic orientation, as @Correy has said. There is a simple method of locating the North Star at night.


As you can see on this picture, first you have to find a star constellation called the Great Bear (Ursa Major) which consists of 7 bright star and is usually easily spotted. Then you find the "bottom" two stars and point an imaginary line through them. Then you take the distance between those two stars and transfer it on the line approximately five times and you'll spot the North Star, which is the "tail" of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor) star constellation. The Little Bear consists of six stars. The North Star (or Polaris, Pole Star) indicates the direction north and now you know where the four cardinal directions are.

 

Thank you for this post! It surely can help anyone in a situation where we're lost. Someday i'll try and put those knowledges to practice and try to guide myself trough the stars.I'm fascinated about how pirates used to navigate in the seas trough these systems,and it makes me wanna live in that age.

 

This is a useful skill for anyone to have. Even if it wouldn't be used, it would probably be an interesting challenge to learn how to use the stars to navigate. This is a skill that had been used for thousands of years to enable human beings to travel and not get lost.