Sun & Stars

Shadow-stick method

The classic daylight method. The sun moves across the sky from east to west, so shadows sweep along the ground from west to east — this trick turns that motion into an accurate east–west line.

1. Plant a stick upright on flat, open ground where it casts a clean shadow. Mark the shadow's tip with a stone — this morning-side mark is your first point.
2. Wait 15 minutes or more. Longer waits (30–60 minutes) give straighter, more reliable lines. The shadow tip has moved — always east of where it started.
3. Mark the new shadow tip with a second stone. This afternoon-side mark is your second point.
4. Draw the line between the marks: that line runs almost perfectly west-to-east — first mark west, second mark east.
5. Stand on the line with the first mark to your left and the second to your right: you are facing roughly north (in the southern hemisphere, roughly south). Behind you lies south; left hand west; right hand east.

Want north–south too? Stand on the midpoint of your line, feet straddling it, facing north as above: a line through your body heel-to-toe is the north–south meridian. Scratch both lines into the dirt and you've drawn a compass rose on the ground.

Watch method

An analog watch is a shadow-stick with gears. This version is for the northern hemisphere:

1. Hold the watch level. If the watch is set for daylight saving time, subtract one hour first — the method reads standard sun time.
2. Point the hour hand at the sun. You can align it by eye, or hold a thin twig upright beside the watch so its shadow falls along the hour hand for a precise set.
3. Bisect the angle between the hour hand and 12 o'clock. That halfway line points south. Opposite it lies north; face north and west is on your left, east on your right.
4. Morning or afternoon matters only for choosing sides: before noon, south lies clockwise from the hour hand; after noon, counterclockwise. The bisected angle itself doesn't change.

Southern hemisphere note

South of the equator the logic flips: point the 12 o'clock mark at the sun instead of the hour hand. The line bisecting the angle between 12 and the hour hand then points north — everything else mirrors accordingly. Near the tropics (roughly 23° either side of the equator) both versions get unreliable because the sun passes nearly overhead; prefer the shadow-stick method there.

Digital watch? Read it as numbers and imagine the analog dial: if it reads 16:45, picture 4:45, point an imaginary hour hand at the sun by holding your arm out, and find the mental halfway line. Clumsy but workable.

Finding Polaris

At night, the north star is the honest one: Polaris sits within about a degree of true north, so it beats even a compass for accuracy. It's a modest second-magnitude star, not the brightest in the sky — find it by its neighbors, then confirm:

1. Find the Big Dipper (the Plough) — seven bright stars in a long-handled ladle, high and easy in northern skies most of the year.
2. Take the two stars of the outer bowl edge, the side away from the handle — the "pointer" stars.
3. Follow the line they make downward (toward the horizon) about five times the gap between them. The medium-bright star you land on is Polaris, the last star in the Little Dipper's handle.
4. Confirm with Cassiopeia, the W-shaped queen on Polaris's far side: the W's open mouth faces the star. When the Dipper has sunk low or hidden behind trees, Cassiopeia is your backup pointer — the two patterns swing around Polaris like opposite ends of a clock hand all night.
5. Face Polaris: that is true north. Its height above the horizon roughly equals your latitude — touching the horizon near the equator, halfway up near 45°, overhead at the pole.

Face any direction and note what lies ahead of you along that line — Polaris gives you a bearing to walk on until dawn or landmarks return.

Southern latitudes: no pole star, use the Southern Cross

There is no bright south polar star. Navigators below the equator use Crux, the Southern Cross: extend its long axis about four and a half times its length toward the ground; the point you reach sits above the south celestial pole. Drop straight from there to the horizon — that direction is due south. Two bright stars off to the side (the Pointers, Alpha and Beta Centauri) help you tell the true Cross from the lookalike "False Cross," which lacks them.

How exact is "the sun rises east"?

"The sun rises in the east and sets in the west" is a useful lie told to children. The truth, stated simply:

• The sun rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west only on the two equinoxes, around March 20 and September 22 each year.
• Northern-hemisphere summer: sunrise drifts toward the northeast and sunset toward the northwest — as much as about 30–40° off true east/west at mid-latitudes.
• Northern-hemisphere winter: sunrise southeast, sunset southwest, by a similar margin.
• The southern hemisphere mirrors this exactly.

Treat sunrise and sunset as rough cardinal markers good to within a few dozen degrees, and sharpen them with the shadow-stick method when precision matters.

Moon shortcuts

The moon can hand you an approximate east–west line when stars are washed out by clouds or haze. The rule of thumb, plainly:

Reading direction from moonrise time and lit side

• If the moon rises before sunset, its illuminated side faces west.
• If the moon rises after midnight, its illuminated side faces east.

In both cases the lit side points roughly toward the sun's position below the horizon, which is why it works. This yields only a coarse east–west sense — combine it with terrain knowledge rather than walking miles on moonlight alone. (Northern hemisphere: the evening crescent's lit horn sits on the right, westward; the pre-dawn waning crescent's on the left, eastward. The southern hemisphere mirrors it.)

Sky methods are approximations layered over common sense. Hold your heading, count paces or hours, and let the next landmark — road, river, ridgeline — finish the job. When you reach camp, rig it right: see Essential Knots; for map-and-compass work, start at Compass Basics.