If you can find the Southern Cross – Crux by its astronomical name – you can easily find the South Celestial Pole (SCP) – an imaginary point in the sky directly above south.

Method 1

Imagine a line joining the two stars at the ‘head’ and the ‘foot’ of the cross. Extend the line out another four lengths from the foot of the cross – that’s the South Celestial Pole (SCP). Then look straight down from the SCP to the horizon – you've found south!

 Method 2

Another slighty trickier – but more accurate – way of finding south is to use the Southern Cross AND the Pointer stars from the neighbouring constellation Centaurus.

Draw a line through the two stars at the 'head' and the 'foot' of the cross and extend it to the dark patch of the sky the same way as in the first method (line 1). Then join a line between the two Pointers (line 2). Find the middle of line 2 then draw a perpendicular line down toward line 1 until the lines meet. The point at which the lines 1 and 3 intersect is the SCP. From there just look straight down to the horizon and you've found south.

Even though the Southern Cross moves around the sky during the year, the foot of the cross always points to the SCP – which is very handy if you've lost your compass or the sun's gone down!