Navigatiween the isnds is retively easy, since you just o aim in the roughly correct dire, and you'll see it over the horizoy quickly. However, I haven't observed how the dwarves or humans navigated out here from the mainnd. If we pn oing up our own merts down the road, that'll be a necessary addition to our knowledge. That also cides 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 resear the matter.

  So I sulted Shasta and ee harbormaster from Rathnd. 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 learhat the night stars pyed a role. However, I expected plicated 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 reizable steltions to navigate, and that's about it.

  I was fused how that would be enough to navigate by, since I expected seasonal ges in steltion locations. However, what I found out was that there doesn't seem to be any seasonal ges in the angle of steltions, or the suns. Our p has negligible axial tilt. That raised more questions for me to iigate at a ter date. I'd just assumed the tilt was less thah, but still present, based on the existence of seasons.

  The way they navigate involves using three of the steltions at su or sunrise. At su or sunrise, you spot two of the three steltions, and then measure their ao the horizon. Oar in one of those three steltions seems to be stationary, funing like the north star. Using that information, you calibrate your other measurements accly against the remaining three steltions for determining your location. After a bit of bad forth, I realized that the "year" on our p doesn't sync up with the orbital time around the suns. The first three steltions are being used to determine where in the orbit we are to calibrate the sed set of measurements.

  Oh, since our year is synced up with our orbital location, you expect the steltions to be in the same spot on the same day every year. Here, they return to the same pce 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 expect what horizon values, though experienced sailet 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 isoted as our isnd. When I first got here, I didn't think much of it, oh, 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 feopute the sky, evehe moon isn't present. I asked if there are more stars visible at other locations, and tried to pare 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 disappoio hear that, in fact, the sky always looked that way, with only a little over a huars. 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 gaxy, or cluster, or if there is something else at py. I do sort of uand why telescopes wouldn't be ied though. The night sky is naturally quite b, and crystals are seen as somewhat dangerous. bihose two facts, and optics would be quite uo be stumbled upon.

  I've already made some basic Galilean refrag telescopes, and I wao make tinted filters and a slightly rger telescope for making sor observations. This information about navigation makes me ied in making other observations about our sor system. A few of the "stars" are quite suspicious in that they're sidered wandering stars who don't follow the usual patterns of movement. I'd bet that they're ps as well.

  Astronomy seems like a good hobby to follow for a while while we wait for the tuo get dug further so that I sample for new deposits. Mana crystals are the main find I'm looking for now, but other deposits are also wele.

  A month's worth of work resulted in a new, rger telescope, though it wasn't actually that rge. Very rge telescopes are better made as reflectors, using mirrors, so I didn't want to overdo it with this projebsp; Even theing everything dialed in took some time. One of the main issues with these refrag telescopes is that the rger the main lens is, the lohe telescope gets, if I don't want to plicate the design. So even for my little 6" leed in a foot long telescope. I didn't get around to attempting to make tinted gss though, so sor observations will have to wait.

  Before that, though, thanks to the added workers iunnel and mine area, I had about a third of a mile of tuo check with teise. Unfortunately, despite the headaches, I didn't actually find anything of note. Eventually they'll make it deep enough uhe mountain that I'll anticipate we'll find something. I sider it quite lucky we already found the deposit that we did, where we did.

  After taking a day to mentally recover from usionise 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 ck of trade, we have a signifit excess of paper, so rec 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 phoic 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 ps, and two of them had moe 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 hough both the Dwarven, Elvish, and Human nguage have distinames for eabsp; After discussing with our harbormaster, Shasta, and Elora about the in of the names in their respective cultures, the Dwarvish names had the most pelling naming scheme.

  They were named after a folktale of three dwarvish brothers who travelled the three tis meeting the other races, aually splitting up to waheir favorite ti. The you brother, Kroko, who was the most eided up on the rgest ti, the human one, and thus travels the most. The middle brother, Dukum, travels the middle amount, and is associated with the Elvish ti. Finally, Dar-Dor, the eldest brother, travels the least, and stays on the dwarven ti. 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 oter, so I didn't have anything to go off of to he moons. The more they travel, the closer to the sun they should be, ating 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 mooo 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 as p, 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 steltions, and making star charts with them. The main stars would be marked with rger 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 ied in what I was doing, the dwarves and humans both seemed quite intrigued, and quite a few were very impressed at seeing phrough the telescope. Once I finish making the star charts I'm ied in, I'll probably limit my night-time observations to two or three times a night, marking information about the ps, and start w on other things in the iween times.