15/10/11

Last night, I was on a night hike with the scouts until about 2am so I had plenty of opportunity to look at the nights sky.
The most important star, considering that we were hiking was Polaris (The north star) which was very useful throughout the night. Also, Ursa Major (the big dipper) was clearly visible and I showed these both to the scouts and taught them how to find Polaris from Ursa major - you draw a line from the two stars making up the end of of the 'pan' and follow it until you reach another noticeably bright star, Polaris.

Polaris will always point north if you are in the northern hemisphere so it is important to know how to find it if you want to do expeditions or similar at night.
I think that despite the time of night, the scouts all enjoyed themselves and learnt some useful information for hiking in the future!