NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Navigating bush flights in northern Canada and Alaska
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2026 Jan 30, 18:16 -0800
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2026 Jan 30, 18:16 -0800
You can also use the astrocompass as a way to use the zenith to determine direction due to polarization of sunlight. This was developed during the early days of trans-polar flights often called a "zenith compass." I set mine up to see how accurately this can be done.
I balanced the polarizing camera filter on top of the sighting vanes one the astrocompass. I cut out a piece of cellophane and put it on top of the filter. I put a small mirror on the base of the astrocompass to allow me to look up though the filter at the zenith. I had to try different alignments of the cellophane to maximize the zenith light shift affect. See attched images.






