A bit trickier than finding the Pole Star for North in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s no actual visible star at the point of South in the Southern Hemisphere. Instead, you have to use two handy indicators: the Southern Cross — easily spotted, fortunately — and two stars known as The Pointers. Find where these intersect and you can find your way to the South Pole.

Alternatively, you can find the way the Southern Cross is pointing and follow this line for a distance equal to 4.5x the length of the Southern Cross to arrive at your spot.

Incidentally, I wondered about reliable methods of finding South in the Northern Hemisphere and North in the Southern Hemisphere. And I think the answer is to find North or South and turn around =)

Use the Southern Cross to find South

Aligned with Earth’s axis of rotation. Appears largely fixed above the poles. The Northern Hemisphere has a Pole Star that will point you North, and the Southern hemisphere’s Pole Star will point you towards South. Handy. Also responsible for some great photography worth checking out.

Sketchplanations tagged with pole-star