Use the Southern Cross to find South

The Southern Cross to find South: Star chart showing how to find South in the Southern hemisphere using star groups called the Southern Cross and The Pointers

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Where the Northern Hemisphere simply allows you to find the North Star, around which all the stars will rotate, finding your way in the Southern Hemisphere is a little more involved. Unlike in the North, there’s no obvious star due 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, as in the sketch, and you’ve found due south.

Or, if you prefer, you can follow the direction the Southern Cross is pointing for a distance equal to 4.5x the length of the Southern Cross to arrive at the 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.

Published 7 May 2015

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The Earth’s tilt causes the changing seasons. As the Earth revolves around the sun, the tilt of its axis—23.5 degrees—causes the two hemispheres, North and South, to be either tilted towards the sun or away from it at different times of the year. In Winter, because light from the sun hits at a greater angle and closer to the poles, the solar energy gets spread over a larger area. This makes it weaker and cooler and gives rise to colder weather (aka winter). In summer, the sun's light hits more directly and is closer to the equator, so it’s concentrated on a smaller area, leading to hotter days. Because of the tile of the earth, seasons are reversed in the two hemispheres, so if it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s summer in the Southern and vice-versa. The further from the equator you go, the bigger the effect of the seasons. As an example, temperatures in Ecuador stay relatively constant throughout the year, while the poles experience extremes of 24-hour daylight or 24-hour night and great freezes and thaws. A version of this sketch, along with a number of other planetary and seasonal ideas, features in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures Also see: Autumn leaves Equinox SolsticeThe Earth’s tilt causes the changing seasons. As the Earth revolves around the sun, the tilt of its axis—23.5 degrees—causes the two hemispheres, North and South, to be either tilted towards the sun or away from it at different times of the year. In Winter, because light from the sun hits at a greater angle and closer to the poles, the solar energy gets spread over a larger area. This makes it weaker and cooler and gives rise to colder weather (aka winter). In summer, the sun's light hits more directly and is closer to the equator, so it’s concentrated on a smaller area, leading to hotter days. Because of the tile of the earth, seasons are reversed in the two hemispheres, so if it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s summer in the Southern and vice-versa. The further from the equator you go, the bigger the effect of the seasons. As an example, temperatures in Ecuador stay relatively constant throughout the year, while the poles experience extremes of 24-hour daylight or 24-hour night and great freezes and thaws. A version of this sketch, along with a number of other planetary and seasonal ideas, features in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures Also see: Autumn leaves Equinox Solstice

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