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Slaggyford Stones 1

Image by StoneGloves

Slaggyford Stones .

StoneGloves Sep 17, 2011 21:28:03

Replying to tiompan

"Of course you can see the sun set behind Amos Hill , if you stand right next to it . But it is impossible to see it from the line of stones at Thornhope , which is where you suggested , no matter how much you brainstorm it will never be true .
You don't need GE to work that out ".

I'm sure you'd be able to figure out how to get my Blackberry maps to work on the Metro system but your GoogleEarth has deficits, on a major scale. The way I would walk to my basecamp in the hills was past the stone row. That's where I left the railway line - now known as the South Tyne Trail - and started off the twelve hundred feet ascent to my camp. When you're carrying ninety pounds of baked beans and biscuits and oranges you want to be out of the heat of the afternoon. So I went up in the evening, just as the light faded.

Because the stone row is lower than the top of Amos Hill - even after its slumped a metre or so - you are looking up at it and the horizon is actually the field behind the hill, at the centre, with Black Hill rising to the left. During spring and autumn the sun, from the stone row, sets behind Black Hill. At the solstice - and a few days before and after - the stting sun moves out from the obscuring Black Hill and appears to roll down its edge. Which has a steep edge at about NY662532. I've never seen it properly, just half, in half out, on the nineteenth.

There is a fallen stone beyond the row, which I assume was an outlier, and that seems to be the best spot to watch these summer sunsets from as the view from the row itself is impeded by a stone wall and scrub trees. I was always keen to get to my campsite as swiftly as possible and rarely hung about there. I also spent a lot of times following the sunrises around the solstice, as I was in a NW/SE valley which seemed ideal to observe them.

tiompan Sep 18, 2011 08:16:31

Replying to StoneGloves

StoneGloves wrote:

your GoogleEarth has deficits, on a major scale.
Because the stone row is lower than the top of Amos Hill - even after its slumped a metre or so - you are looking up at it and the horizon is actually the field behind the hill, at the centre, with Black Hill rising to the left. During spring and autumn the sun, from the stone row, sets behind Black Hill. At the solstice - and a few days before and after - the stting sun moves out from the obscuring Black Hill and appears to roll down its edge. Which has a steep edge at about NY662532. I've never seen it properly, just half, in half out, on the nineteenth.

Why do you keep going on about google earth , surely you realise there is a bit more to working out this type of thing , or maybe you don’t .

You contradict yourself in these two paragraphs ,in the first you are saying that from the “stone row” and looking up at Amos Hill the horizon is the field behind the hill then in the second you are saying the view from the “stone row” is impeded by a stone wall and scrub .
Regardless it is as I said in the first post about this . Without the scrub and wall when looking from the line of stones over Amos Hill the horizon would be Glendue Fell but you would never see the sun set there as it is too far north .Similarly the sun would not be seen to set from the stones over Black Hill or the grid ref you gave with these points on the horizon , Glendue Fell is still the horizon and the orientation is still too far north .