Finding the North Star

January 2, 2013 By Clarke Green

Take this sky tour infographic with you and the next time you are out camping take a few minutes to conduct a tour of the circumpolar constellations. You’ll learn two methods of finding the north star and how to identify the constellations along with some astronomy facts and folklore.

Whenever we have good seeing conditions I try to take the time go through the visible constellations with Scouts, they get pretty good at identifying them once we’ve done it a few times. An astronomy grade green laser pointer (check Ebay, lots of choices) is an indispensable tool for pointing out the features of the night sky and finding the north star.

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Tags: Infographics, Nature Study

About Clarke Green

Clarke has worked with thousands of Scouts and Scouters as a director at his local Scout Camp (Camp Horseshoe), and as a Scoutmaster for 30 years. He is the recipient of a number of awards recognizing his service to Scouting, including the B.S.A.’s Silver Beaver, District Award of Merit, and is a Vigil Honor member of Octoraro Lodge 22. He is author of the blog and podcast at Scoutmastercg.com, The Scouting Journey, and Thoughts on Scouting. An avid outdoorsman and amateur actor, he lives in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania with his wife Teddi.

Comments

Walter Underwood says

January 2, 2013 at 1:58 pm

When the Big Dipper is not above the horizon, I look at the wide V in Cassiopeia as a slingshot and hit Polaris with that. It isn’t exact, but it is good enough, mostly because Polaris is in an area without a lot of other bright stars.

It certainly helps to get a feeling for how far Polaris should be above the horizon. I guess it would be really easy to quantify that based on latitude. A fist at arms length is about 10º of arc, close enough for Polaris. Maybe I should do that.