NOVEL NEXT [Vol.6] Ch.2 Basic Astronomy
Navigating between the islands is relatively easy, since you just need to aim in the roughly correct direction, and you'll see it over the horizon pretty quickly. However, I haven't observed how the dwarves or humans navigated out here from the mainland. If we plan on setting up our own merchants down the road, that'll be a necessary addition to our knowledge. That also coincides with my desire to research the heavens, so I figured now that I've brought the remaining medium crystals down, I could take a little time to begin preliminary research on the matter.
So I consulted Shasta and our refugee harbormaster from Rathland. There was quite a lot I learned, and a lot of my assumptions were way off. I'd talked with Shasta a long time ago, back when we first met, and had learned that the night stars played a role. However, I expected complicated equipment and star charts, which I was wrong about. They did have a sextant like tool, though it didn't use any lenses. Outside of that though, they seem to use the suns and six somewhat recognizable constellations to navigate, and that's about it.
I was confused how that would be enough to navigate by, since I expected seasonal changes in constellation locations. However, what I found out was that there doesn't seem to be any seasonal changes in the angle of constellations, or the suns. Our planet has negligible axial tilt. That raised more questions for me to investigate at a later date. I'd just assumed the tilt was less than earth, but still present, based on the existence of seasons.
The way they navigate involves using three of the constellations at sunset or sunrise. At sunset or sunrise, you spot two of the three constellations, and then measure their angle to the horizon. One star in one of those three constellations seems to be stationary, functioning like the north star. Using that information, you calibrate your other measurements accordingly against the remaining three constellations for determining your location. After a bit of back and forth, I realized that the "year" on our planet doesn't sync up with the orbital time around the suns. The first three constellations are being used to determine where in the orbit we are to calibrate the second set of measurements.
On earth, since our year is synced up with our orbital location, you can expect the constellations to be in the same spot on the same day every year. Here, they return to the same place about every 143 days. With a year of 390 days, the math just doesn't line up well to keep a record and memorize what day you can expect what horizon values, though experienced sailors get a good intuition for it.
I also followed up with another question, which was something that bothered me occasionally. When I look up at the sky, it seems bare, especially for somewhere as dark and isolated as our island. When I first got here, I didn't think much of it, on earth, light pollution had made it hard to spot all but the brightest of stars, and the night sky here seems about the same as that. Very few stars populate the sky, even when the moon isn't present. I asked if there are more stars visible at other locations, and tried to compare what I could see with what the humans and dwarves could, in case something about our eyes made it harder to see stars with.
However, I was disappointed to hear that, in fact, the sky always looked that way, with only a little over a hundred stars. Basic use of my pocket telescope shows that there are still more stars out there, too dim to see unaided. Though this makes me wonder whether we're just in a sparse galaxy, or cluster, or if there is something else at play. I do sort of understand why telescopes wouldn't be invented though. The night sky is naturally quite boring, and crystals are seen as somewhat dangerous. Combine those two facts, and optics would be quite unlikely to be stumbled upon.
I've already made some basic Galilean refracting telescopes, and I wanted to make tinted filters and a slightly larger telescope for making solar observations. This information about navigation makes me interested in making other observations about our solar system. A few of the "stars" are quite suspicious in that they're considered wandering stars who don't follow the usual patterns of movement. I'd bet that they're planets as well.
Astronomy seems like a good hobby to follow for a while while we wait for the tunnel to get dug further so that I can sample for new deposits. Mana crystals are the main find I'm looking for now, but other deposits are also welcome.
A month's worth of work resulted in a new, larger telescope, though it wasn't actually that large. Very large telescopes are better made as reflectors, using mirrors, so I didn't want to overdo it with this project. Even then, getting everything dialed in took some time. One of the main issues with these refracting telescopes is that the larger the main lens is, the longer the telescope gets, if I don't want to complicate the design. So even for my little 6" lens resulted in an eight foot long telescope. I didn't get around to attempting to make tinted glass though, so solar observations will have to wait.
Before that, though, thanks to the added workers in the tunnel and mine area, I had about a third of a mile of tunnel to check with tectonic sense. Unfortunately, despite the headaches, I didn't actually find anything of note. Eventually they'll make it deep enough under the mountain that I'll anticipate we'll find something. I consider it quite lucky we already found the deposit that we did, where we did.
After taking a day to mentally recover from using tectonic sense so much, I turned my sights upwards. I shifted my half-asleep times to the day, where I would assist either the mine or the reservoir expansion team using improved stone shaping, then at night, I made observations of the night sky using the telescope.
Due to our lack of trade, we have a significant excess of paper, so recording all my observations was easy. Most of my notes were in a hybrid between Dwarvish and English. I used Dwarvish for the words that I could, but a lot of the words were phonetic spellings of English words. Though many of the notes were actually pictures, rather than words at all.
The first things I turned my eyes to were the so-called "wandering stars". Sure enough, the three of them appeared to be planets, and two of them had moons large enough to see with my telescope. Over the course of a month, I made multiple observations a night of these three bodies. They already have names, though both the Dwarven, Elvish, and Human language have distinct names for each. After discussing with our harbormaster, Shasta, and Elora about the origin of the names in their respective cultures, the Dwarvish names had the most compelling naming scheme.
They were named after a folktale of three dwarvish brothers who travelled the three continents meeting the other races, and eventually splitting up to wander their favorite continent. The youngest brother, Kroko, who was the most energetic ended up on the largest continent, the human one, and thus travels the most. The middle brother, Dukum, travels the middle amount, and is associated with the Elvish continent. Finally, Dar-Dor, the eldest brother, travels the least, and stays on the dwarven continent. Dar-Dor lives a humble life for the most part, and thus is the dimmest brightness of the brothers, sometimes being hard to find in the sky.
Unfortunately, that's the end of their mythology on the matter, so I didn't have anything to go off of to name the moons. The more they travel, the closer to the sun they should be, accounting for their faster orbital period. Surprisingly, Kroko and Dukum both appear to be gas giants, and possess the moons I saw. Kroko has a pair of moons, and Dukum has one. Kroko's moons seem to orbit every 2.2 and 4.4 days, and Dukum's orbits every 9. Kroko also has a very faint ring system.
I couldn't determine for sure if Dar-Dor was terrestrial or a gas planet, and it was far enough away that it was hard to determine much about it. It'll take quite a bit of additional observations to determine any additional info, like their orbital periods. For the majority of the night, I spent time looking at each of the major constellations, and making star charts with them. The main stars would be marked with larger circles, then I'd make little marks to indicate all the smaller stars I could see with the telescope.
While most of the demons weren't very interested in what I was doing, the dwarves and humans both seemed quite intrigued, and quite a few were very impressed at seeing planets through the telescope. Once I finish making the star charts I'm interested in, I'll probably limit my night-time observations to two or three times a night, marking information about the planets, and start working on other things in the in-between times.