NavList:

Ha ha. I just want to say, David, I enjoyed your continuation of the bear invasion story. We should probably kill it off now, lest other navigation fans think we're not taking this subject seriously enough in this festive season of solstice festivals! But it's good fun for the last days of 2024. :)

You wrote:
"so possibly McBeth’s Hillock "

Could be... "double double..." and all. Did I mention I saw David Tennant in Macbeth while I was in London? A fine production but surprisingly no references to stars in the constellation Lyra.

You spotted it:
"Double Double is probably referring to Epsilon Lyrae, so the nearest bright star is Vega."

Exactly. I'm glad you spotted it. I'm never quite sure when my "clues" become obvious. Of course there aren't many people outside the world of backyard astronomy who have heard of a star called the "double double" but if we "google" with the search term "double double star", it looks as if the top ten hits point directly to ε Lyr, and then, as you say, Vega becomes obvious.

And you deduced correctly that the other navigation star, which I had described as an inferior navigation star, couldn't be Deneb or Altair, both near Vega but not at all inferior, so it had to be some second or third rank star. And you spotted it: "you would eventually come to Eltanin". It's of no further significance, and it's certainly not easy to find either in the real world or in a photo like this one, but it answers that part of my puzzle. The two navigation stars in the image are Vega and Eltanin. Nice work picking them out so quickly!

Frank Reed