On 28 Jan 2020 at 9:47, Catherine Berry wrote:

> Again, at night this isn't an issue. I imagine that most visual
> navigation on the Ringworld is done at night, when the nearer sunlit
> segments of the walls would stand out much better against the dark
> sky, and landmarks on more distant parts of the ring could be seen
> more clearly.

Day *or* night, if the sky is clear enough to (possibly) see the
walls, it's *definitely* clear enough to see the Arch.

And the Arch is narrow enough to give you good heading info. If you
are looking at it you are facing either spinward, or anti-spinward.

Whic can be determined by observing the progression of the shadow
squares. In one direction the dark areas are moving away from you. In
the other they are moving *towards* you.

That suffices for gross orientation. For finer bearings, you might be
able to determine something with instruments (croos-staff, astrolabe,
sextant, etc). But the details of how depend on things I don't know
enough about.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com