Find Your Way Back Home Using the Celestial Navigation

If you’re a dedicated survivalist or planning to become one, you should start learning about nature and its ways right about…yesterday.

Even though there are all sorts of gear to help you find your way when lost in the outdoors, this doesn’t mean you can’t be one step ahead and prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best.

You need to learn about finding water when out door, how to light a fire with a flashlight or how to send a surviving signal using some fire. The list of things you need to know it’s quite long, but it’s going to help you find your direction if ever got lost.

One thing you may always rely on when out there is the celestial navigation that helps you find your way when your compass isn’t working anymore. It refers to navigate by the sun, stars, moon and planets and it’s a dependable tool that nature gives you. 

Use the sun for navigation

Using the sun is one of the easiest and fundamental ways to find your way when you’re left with no map or compass. 

Most of us know that sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but the same point along the horizon at which the sun rises/sets changes throughout the entire year.

Once the sun gets to its highest point, at noon, it’s going to point south (in the northern hemisphere) or north (in the southern hemisphere. During winter time, the sun doesn’t get that high in the sky so you need to look for the shadows that are longer.

Use a pocket watch

Even though you may not know it, you may also use a pocket watch to find north and south. It may be an easy way, but you need to be cautious when using it as it may not always be highly accurate.

Using a watch to find your way in the outdoors is quite a rough method and it may give even a 20 degree in error.

So, in order to get higher precision while using this method, you need to have access to a table of the sun’s direction.

This doesn’t mean you can’t find yourself in the situation when this method is quite reliable for finding your direction. Here are some tips you may want to remember when using your pocket watch:

• ·         You should only use it in latitudes between 40 and 60 degrees north and south of the equator. The closer you are to the Equator, the less precise this method really is.

• ·         Your watch has to run precisely on local time

• ·         You get the highest precision at noon on any day

You need to point the hour hand directly at the sun and then divide in two the angle between the hour hand and 12 o’clock. The imaginary line that you get runs north/south. 

In case you’re not sure which end of the line is south, try to remember that the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, the sun is due south at noon.

When you’re in the southern hemisphere though, you need to point the 12 o’clock mark on the watch towards the sun and divide in two the angle between the hour hand and 12 o’clock. Always keep in mind that the sun is due north at noon in the southern hemisphere.