Astronomy 1: Knowing North and the Circumpolar Sky

about how the cardinal directions of north, south, east and west were determined, from Sacred Number and the Lords of Time, chapter 4, pages 84-86.

Away from the tropics there is always a circle of the sky whose circumpolar stars never set and that can be used for observational astronomy. As latitude increases the pole gets higher in the north and the disk of the circumpolar region, set at the angular height of the pole, ascends so as to dominate the northern sky at night.

Therefore, the angular height of the pole at any latitude is the same angle we use to define that latitude, and this equals the half angle between the outer circumpolar stars and the pole itself. For example, CarnacAn extensive megalithic complex in southern Brittany, western France, predating the British megalithic. has a latitude of 47.5 degrees north so that the pole will be raised by 47.5 degrees above a flat horizon, while the circumpolar region will then be 95 degrees in angular extent.

It is perhaps no accident that the pole is called a pole since to visualize the polar axis one can imagine a physical pole with a star on top, like a toy angel’s wand. The circumpolar region is “suspended” around the pole like a plate “held up” by the pole. Therefore, a physical pole, set into the ground, can be used to view the north pole from a suitable distance south (i.e., with the pole’s top as a foresight for the observer’s backsight). Such an observing pole would probably have been set at the center of a circle drawn on the ground, representing the circumpolar region around the north pole. This arrangement, a gnomonancient Greek: gnomon means “indicator,” “one who discerns,” or “that which reveals.”,* existed throughout history but usually presented as part of a sun dial.

*According to the testimony of Herodotus, the gnomon was originally an astronomical instrument invented in Mesopotamia and introduced to Greece by Anaximander. It was innovated even earlier, in the megalithic period, because structures that could operate one still exist within megalithic monuments.

It now appears a gnomic pole was also used in prehistory to locate the north pole in the middle of circumpolar skies. The north pole is opposite the shadow of the equinoctal sun at midday. The gnomic pole could also be used to find “true north,” as located halfway between the extremes of the same circumpolar star above the northern horizon. This can make use of the fact that when the sun is at equinoxThe two times of the year, in Spring and Autumn, when the sun rises directly east and sets directly west - at every latitude on Earth., it lies on the celestial equator and therefore is at a right angle to the north pole (see figure 4.4). This right angle is expressed at the top of the gnomic pole used and hence can enable the alignment of the pole through the similarity (or congruence) of all the right-angled triangles within the arrangement.

Figure 4.4. From pole to pole. It is possible to determine the angle of the north pole using a gnomic pole as shadow stick, but only at noon on the equinox. The laddie on the left cannot do this to a possible few minutes of a degree, but the geometry of the stick and shadow length can, providing true north and equinox can be determined. Illustration on left from Robin HeathEngineer, teacher and author, who discovered the Lunation Triangle (c. 1990), that enabled the lunar year to be rationally related to the solar year. During the 1990s we collaborated to further understand the astronomical and numerical discoveries of the megalithic astronomers., Sun, Moon and Stonehenge, fig. 9.3.

To achieve an accurate bearing to true north, a circumpolar observatoryA geometrical arrangement suited to the tracking the motion of circumpolar stars, around the north pole, during the night. can use the gnomic pole method, not just at noon on the equinox but every night, by dividing the angular range of circumpolar star, in azimuththe standard angular measurement of angles on the horizon, measured clockwise from zero degrees true North.. The north pole’s altitude, known to us as latitude on the Earth, can then be identified by dividing the angular range in altitude of a circumpolar star, a task achievable through geometry and metrologyThe application of units of length to problems of measurement, design, comparison or calculation., so as to create a metrological model of the latitude upon the Earth.

It would seem obvious today that the pole star Polaris could have been used, but this is a persistent and widespread misunderstanding of the role of pole stars within the ancient and prehistoric world. Epochs in which there is a star within one degree of the pole are very rare and shortlived. Our pole star, Polaris (alpha Ursa Minor), is currently placed two thirds of a degree from a pole that is moving through the northern sky (figure 4.3 on p. 83) in a circle around the eclipticThe path of the Sun through the sky along which eclipses of sun and moon can occur, traditionally divided into the 365¼ parts of the solar year, each part then a DAY in angle rather than time. pole of the solar system. Polaris will be nearest the pole (about ½ degree) at the end of this century.

The last time there was a star at all near the north pole was prior to the construction of the Great Pyramid in 2540 BCE . That pole star was Thuban (Alpha Draconis), and it was just one-fifteenth of a degree from the pole in 2800 BCE . The Great Pyramid has a narrow air shaft that pointed to Thuban, at which time it was already departing the pole and nearly one-third of a degree from it. Therefore, the megalithic people at Carnac, as well as almost all cultures throughout time, did not have the convenience of a pole star in approximately locating the north pole.

From 5000 to 4000 BCE , the time of megalithic building at Carnac, the north pole was a dark region surrounded by many bright stars. The inability to locate the north pole using a pole star challenged the people of the megalithic to develop a more sophisticated and accurate method. In any case, true north and latitude needed to be located more accurately than by using a pole star, which can only ever approximate the position of the north pole. Also, through the circumpolar observatory, sidereal time and even longitude between sites could be measured once the movement of the circumpolar stars could be exploited. True north, based upon these stars around the pole, can give the cardinal directions to an observatory.

The equinoctial sunrise in the east and sunset in the west can give a mean azimuth (horizon angle) to obtain south and north but only if the horizon is dead flat to each of these alignments. Far better then to observe the extremes of motion of a single circumpolar star, to the east and the west, to then find the North pole in between those two alignments.

One can therefore see that the circumpolar stars and sighting techniques, involving a gnomon, allowed north and the cardinal directions in a more reliable way than recording sunrise and sunsets since the sun on the horizon is variable between years due to the solar yearFrom Earth: the time in which the sun moves once around the Zodiac, now known to be caused by the orbital period of the Earth around the Sun. having nearly ¼ day more than 365 days. The circumpolar stars enabled buildings and long sights to be built to true north-south-east-west, and by ignoring this, a building such as the Great Pyramid of Giza surprises us with its accurate placement relative to the cardinal directions.