Star-gazing map for Kili

Monday 11th June 2007

I am indebted to Karen Sergeant for sending in details of an online star chart for Kilimanjaro.

Over the years of writing this book the number of people who have contacted me suggesting that I put in a star chart for Kilimanjaro has been prolific. Indeed, we seriously considered having a chapter on the night sky that climbers on Kili can see. Because, regardless of whether or not you have any interest in astronomy, with little light pollution on the mountain, the number of stars one can see simply takes the breath away.

Thankfully, the Weather Underground website has done all this for us. To reach it is easy: simply click on the Weather Underground name and this will take you directly to the Kilimanjaro page. Under the Astronomy section on this page you will see the link for the full star chart. As well as being a very powerful programme, it’s also very flexible and user-friendly one. As Karen says, “You can re-draw the sky for any date, any time of day/night, and turn on/off things like constellation lines/names/borders, planets, star names, etc. So it’seasy to plug in your trip dates and, say, an 8pm time and get your star map.”

June 2007 Kilimanjaro news >>