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[Juxta]

#183 Drinking Gourd

[Juxta]

#Calling all Tanners, calling all Tanners, come in Tanner, do you copy?#


J

[spugmeistress]

Re: #183 Drinking Gourd

[sotonrich]

i've been working on this card tonight. so far i've found this:

The Drinkin' Gourd is another name for the constellation Ursa Major. Fugitive slaves in the United States used to use it as a landmark so they would not get lost.

The term comes from the song Follow the Drinkin' Gourd which was used by conductors of the Underground Railway to guide some fugitive slaves.

The words of the song went as follows:
:"When the sun come back and the first quail calls,
:Follow the Drinkin' Gourd,
:For the old man's waitin' for to carry you to freedom,
:If you follow the Drinkin' Gourd."

The star Polaris, the Pole Star, can be found using ursa major (the big dipper). this ensured the slave were always heading north towards canada and freedom.

Von's clue:

[sotonrich]

[fabs_uk]

for reference:

[Kvasir]

[fabs_uk]

Sorry to spoiler tag such a large block of text. It's a discussion of why i think what i spoilered above

[Kvasir]

My theory on this one is as follows

[fabs_uk]

ok, by my reckonings:

[fabs_uk]

Ok, a bit of juggling with the numbers and it seems that polaris is 'above' celestial north at this time of night so....

[sotonrich]

i just typed that and it rejected it! and that was my 3rd guess...........so much for getting a top ten spot....and after all the effort

well done for getting it tho....i hope my info helped.

[amliag]

you need to put

[ajas2]

Has anyone considered that there's a little too much information on this card? It points to a specific date and time. Could that be important?

1) We have a Latitude - found from the position of Polaris on the chart

2) We have a Longitude - implied from the shape of the east coast of the US

3) Given a Latitude and a Longitude, we can refer back to the card and (almost) imply a date and time. Almost, because the sky at 10pm on a given night looks very similar to that at 10:04pm the previous night and 9:56pm the following night.

BUT:

4) We also have a planet. And, apparently, the Moon with an image of its phase. (It' slightly fuller than a half-moon. There are no notable nebulae in that part of the sky, and along with the planet it lies on the plane of the ecliptic.)

With this, I think we can uniquely identify the time of the measurements (year, date and time) to within 4 seconds. (15 degrees of tracking across the equator corresponds to an hour of time. The precision on the card is to the nearest arcminute, ie 60x smaller than a degree and 60x15 less than the distance tracked in an hour. Thus, 4 seconds.)

On the night of 16th January 2004, at around 9:30pm local time at Wilmington, Saturn was in the right part of the sky. That was of course the night the cube was stolen. However, the moon was not visible.

If anyone's interested in finding the actual date and time, you could try the "Heavens Above" website. Just tell it you're in Wilmington, NC, and ask for a Whole Sky Chart. Pick a date and time and you're away. For more detailed info (including actual elevations, which the Heavens Above website doesn't provide) you might have to download some software.

I just wonder if this information will shed some light on the bigger picture of the Cube theft.

[locqust]

Sure its saturn and not mars? If you use a graphical representation it should correspond to something ppl can identify with. Ie the 2 days after full moon is represented by a moon 2 days after full. Red dot would strike me as mars, saturn would therefore be represented by ringed planet.

think im just being picky now but....