NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Antoine Couëtte
Date: 2023 Sep 11, 00:11 -0700
Quite busy lately, and before I look up other's solutions to this early Puzzle, I think that the following features can be identified with some good confidence :
- Great Magellan Cloud (GMC)
- Small Magellan Cloud (SMC) partially cut out by the edge of the picture.
- If both above are correct, it is then possible to identify Canopus (mid-picture "height" slightly right of GMC), which in turn would lead us to ε Car with β Car almost invisible in the glow.
- Sirius then is under Canopus (bottom right of the picture), with β Cma (on top of Sirius) and δ Cma as well as ε Cma visible to the right of Sirius.
- Achernar under SMC and slightly "higher" on the picture than Canopus.
Far from having identified all possible Navigation Stars because this drill is difficult :
-We are working from a picture totally degraded by the glow if not the blaze of the Southern Light
- The correspondence between real world Azimuth / Height and the position on the picture is definitely complex ...
Our Latitude ?
Assuming that Sirius and Canopus (36° apart) are in the same "real world" Azimuth indicates that the Observer's South is in this direction.
If - and again if - Sirius (S16.7°) is seen due South some 12° above the horizon, this indicates an Observer close to 85° South.
SMC declination is close to S 77° and it "seems" close from the Observer's zenith.
Give or take, I would then surmise the observer's Latitude to lie somewhere around South 80° +/- 5°
My best guess,
Kermit