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101005 Pictures << Previous Picture | Next Picture >> Mitchell's Fold Stone Circle Survey
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Unless otherwise stated, this image is the copyright of the submitter. Contact them for permission to reproduce it. |  | | Description | This image is by way of a test as it's the first image I have uploaded.
I've been studying Mitchell's Fold and its landscape setting as an archaeoastronomical project since march 2011. I've discovered some interesting things about what the ancients would have been watching, by way of sun, moon and stars.
As part of the process of eventually publishing the results of the study I am also developing a panorama information set for use with astronomy software, namely for Stellarium which is a free program, and for Starry Night Pro which is not free and quite expensive for the average non-serious astronomer.
This image is the result of a survey to find the centre of the stone circle from where all observations would be subsequently made. It was carried out in August of 2011. After the survey was completed the results were used to prepare an overlay for GoogleEarth satellite imagery, from which the surveyed points were repositioned to find the best fit centre.
Subsequently, in order to be able to calibrate a panorama to the respective astronomy software, trips were made to try and catch sunrises and sunsets at key dates, namely solstices and equinoxes. I've managed to get spring equinox and summer solstice sunrises and one sunset. It's remarkable how difficult this is proving to be. The British weather is rarely co-operative!
I found 14 stones which appeared to be genuine circle stones and two which were doubtful. Later when I manged to get hold of both Alexander Thom's survey and that by English Heritage(EH), I found that my numbering was exactly the same as the latter and the same two stones that I queried were similarly regarded as dubious by EH. My survey matched exactley that of Thom's but he does not query any stones in his publication. There was a very minor difference of positioning when compared with the EH survey.
Underlying image (c)
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| Posted Comments: Andy B
(2012-08-19) | Very interesting Orpbit, please tell us more when it's ready | guile
(2012-08-23) | This is great stuff. You must be very pleased with the progress so far, british weather notwithstanding. Well done and good luck for the future. | cerrig
(2012-08-23) | I've been doing something similar in the Brecon beacons, so I can sympahise completely with your weather problems, and the lottery that is the weather forecast . I look foreward to hearing more from you. |
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