Celestial navigation is a dying art in our world. Sure, summer camp counselors might instruct their younger adventurers that they can locate north by correctly identifying the North Star, Polaris, while on a nighttime hike in the woods. But let’s be honest — no kid forcibly enrolled in this excursion is willingly taking woodland strolls at night for fear of a rogue bear or an encounter with something more supernatural that could be hiding in the shadows. The stars used to be the primary source of navigation. From sailing to the New World to traveling across great swaths of indistinguishable terrain, if an intrepid adventurer, merchant, or refugee found themselves off track or misdirected with a map, they could always count on the night sky to guide them to their destination. Drone image courtesy of iStock.com/Chesky_W. Background image courtesy of iStock.com/Oscar Gutierrez Zozulia. GPS has made this tactic obsolete, however, due to its relative accuracy and availability. That said, with recent advancements in jamming technology disrupting radio frequency global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals in drones, researchers are once again looking up to the stars for tried-and-true navigation. Case in point: Remote sensing engineers from the University of South Australia have combined celestial navigation with vision-based technology to provide an alternative means of nighttime navigation in environments where GNSS signals can be made unavailable. The celestial navigation system can be integrated into standard drones, offering a dependable and accurate backup. The payload, which consists of a Raspberry Pi 5 and an Alvium 1800 U-240 monochrome sensor fitted with a 6-mm f/1.4 wide-angle lens, relies on an algorithm that uses visual data from stars and processes it through standard autopilot systems. This differs from other traditional star-based navigation systems, which can be too heavy, complex, or expensive to implement on a regular basis, due to the extra features that are required, such as stabilization hardware. During tests, the engineers were able to attach the payload into the shoulder of an autopiloted fixed-wing uncrewed aerial vehicle capturing images at a rate of 10 Hz. And while the team conducted the tests on a moonless night where the stars would be at their brightest, advantage or not, the drone demonstrated accurate positioning within 4 km during the designated flight time. The engineers believe that this type of system will find its optimal deployments with drones flying over oceans, or for militaristic applications where their presence would be considered hostile. And just as the investigators’ titles suggest, they also believe the payload could be used for applications such as environmental monitoring and remote sensing. It probably won’t be used to help campers return to their cabins, so for now, kids will just have to pay attention when the counselor points out Polaris in the sky, and not mistake a celestial-guided drone for a shooting star whizzing through the heavens. The research was published in Drones (www.doi.org/10.3390/drones8110652).