Events on Site - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 230

F IG . 8.1 Planned landscaping of the stone circle; for the key to the stones
see Fig. 6.23 (Drawing by Richard Robertson)
remain to be verified. A sizeable company of 30 people gathered
on the hilltop on the early morning of Thursday, June 21, but the
sky was completely overcast and after 10 min it began to rain,
and Thursday and Friday evenings were no better. Around the sol-
stice, the Sun's declinations change little over a few days, but Fri-
day and Saturday mornings were so atrocious that no one made
the attempt to be present. On Saturday evening, when the atten-
dance had dropped to just myself, the sunset was clear enough to
confirm that the alignment of the circle was approximately accu-
rate (Fig. 8.3 ). Although by that time the sunset point was moving
south, and there were too many clouds for precise observations,
the setting position was still well within the accuracy we had
been able to achieve without distant foresights. (The only possible