Irlandés
23rd Jul 2002, 11:20
Here's an interesting one.
I'm currently reading Gann's 'Fate is the Hunter' which most of you are probably familiar with.
Well, while flying somewhere over northern Canada, our protagonist decides to try his hand at a bit of Celestial Navigation and tries to plot his position by sighting on Dubhe in the constellation Ursa Major. He spies this star out of a cabin window. All well and fine here. Ursa Major is a circumpolar constellation and quite easily visible (if the time is right) out a cabin window. Our hero, subsequently goes to the toilet (geographically, not biologically ;) ) at the back of the aircraft which for some reason has a window in the ceiling out of which he spies Sirius, the second brightest star in the sky. Now my astronomy might be a bit rusty but if I remember correctly Sirius is well below the Celestial equator and therefore never 'rises' much above the southern horizon for observers in northern climes and even less so for anyone so far north as Canada. So I find it hard to imagine anyone spying Sirius while looking vertically through the ceiling of an aircraft flying so far north.
In his defense, our erstwhile hero earlier in the book claims to not being very good at Astronomy and this is his first 'operational' attempt at celestial navigation.
Anyone got any thoughts on the matter?
Irlandés
(edited because I can't spell! :D )
I'm currently reading Gann's 'Fate is the Hunter' which most of you are probably familiar with.
Well, while flying somewhere over northern Canada, our protagonist decides to try his hand at a bit of Celestial Navigation and tries to plot his position by sighting on Dubhe in the constellation Ursa Major. He spies this star out of a cabin window. All well and fine here. Ursa Major is a circumpolar constellation and quite easily visible (if the time is right) out a cabin window. Our hero, subsequently goes to the toilet (geographically, not biologically ;) ) at the back of the aircraft which for some reason has a window in the ceiling out of which he spies Sirius, the second brightest star in the sky. Now my astronomy might be a bit rusty but if I remember correctly Sirius is well below the Celestial equator and therefore never 'rises' much above the southern horizon for observers in northern climes and even less so for anyone so far north as Canada. So I find it hard to imagine anyone spying Sirius while looking vertically through the ceiling of an aircraft flying so far north.
In his defense, our erstwhile hero earlier in the book claims to not being very good at Astronomy and this is his first 'operational' attempt at celestial navigation.
Anyone got any thoughts on the matter?
Irlandés
(edited because I can't spell! :D )