Mastering any skill takes passion and a commitment of time. Once achieved, a skill can last a lifetime of practice, but it is accessible only to the master unless it is passed on to others. Such is the story of the Satawalese star compass, Pa‘afu, used by the late master navigator, Mau Piailug, and our more modern Hawaiian star compass created by master navigator Nainoa Thompson.

Born Pius Piailug in 1932, Piailug was raised in the village of Weiso on the tiny atoll of Satawal in the Yap State of the Caroline Islands, part of the Federated States of Micronesia. At 5, Piailug attended Weriyeng, one of the last two schools of traditional navigation, for apprentice training and went on to study with Angor, a skilled and recognized master navigator.

At 18, Piailug was initiated into the rank of palu, master navigator, through a generations-honored ceremony called pwo. Satawal would not witness another pwo ceremony until 2007, when five Hawaiian and 11 Sata­walese men were initiated.

Piailug’s penchant for sailing in all weather conditions earned him the name “Mau” from the Satawalese word maumau, meaning strong. Piailug trained and mentored Thompson, a native Hawaiian master navigator who in turn developed a modern system of wayfinding, or non-instrument navigation, using the Hawaiian star compass.

Thompson incorporated a working list of 110 stars into his Hawaiian star compass. They include Arcturus, or Hokule‘a, which rises and sets at 19 degrees north; Spica, or Hikianalia, which rises and sets at 11 degrees south; and Mintaka, in Orion’s belt, which has a declination of 0 degrees.

The reason a star compass works so well for the latitudes between Hawaii and Tahiti is because we inhabit the Tropics, between the margins of 23.5 degrees north and 23.5 degrees south, between which the rising and setting paths of the stars, sun, moon and planets appear to be fairly vertical. However, when we travel further north or south the paths of these objects become more inclined until they become parallel to the horizon at the poles.

Thus, at the latitudes of the far north or south, wayfinders need to rely on other techniques. The Inuit of the Arctic north, for example, use a traditional system called sastrugi, in which they determine direction based on observation of snow-formed ridges on the surface of ice, shaped by the wind.

December’s night sky

On Dec. 3, be on the lookout for a supermoon, which is when the full moon’s distance is closest to Earth, at a special location on the moon’s orbit known as perigee. The moon does not orbit around Earth in a perfect circle; it orbits in an ellipse or oval shape, which means that the moon’s distance from Earth changes as it orbits. Every month the moon passes through perigee and when a full moon lines up with the perigee, it’s called a supermoon and will appear to be slightly larger in the sky.

Rising from the east, throughout December, will be the distinctive star cluster of Makali‘i, also known as the Pleiades. This stellar open cluster stands out with its seven brightest stars being clearly visible to the naked eye. The stars in the cluster were all born from the same nebula about 100 million years ago. As these stars are around the same age, the cluster can be used as a laboratory for the study of stellar evolution.

Considered by many to be the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminids meteor shower runs from early to mid-December. Multiple meteors per minute are expected to be occurring on the night of Dec. 13, marking the peak of the shower.

Winter Solstice for the northern hemisphere takes place on Dec. 21, where the sun will rise and set at its southernmost position in the sky. The sun will have a low arc across the sky, making it the shortest period of daylight for the whole year.

Daylight in December arrives later as the sun rises just after 6:40 a.m. In the early morning, about 3 a.m., Mars rises from the east, the planet will be distinguishable among the sea of stars by its rusty color, which is caused from the iron-oxide in its soil. As sunrise approaches, the bright planet of Jupiter will rise from the east at about 5 a.m. As the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the sun, moon and Venus), Jupiter will still be visible as the sun begins to rise. Jupiter owes its brightness to its thick atmosphere which reflects back much of the light that comes from the sun.

In the northeast the seven stars of Nahiku, which shares the same stars of the Big Dipper, are easily noticeable. Tracing the arc of stars representing the Big Dipper’s handle down towards the east, one can find the bright star Hokule‘a. This star is the namesake of the famous Hawaiian voyaging canoe that completed a worldwide voyage earlier this year.

Chad Kalepa Baybayan is the navigator-in-residence and Emily Peavy is the planetarium technician support facilitator at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai‘i , a center for informal science education on the UH-Hilo campus, showcasing astronomy and Hawaiian culture as parallel journeys of human exploration.