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Leading stars The western most star or set of stars of some constellation or configuration of stars. If you think of a group of stars as a vessel circling the elevated pole of the sky, then the ones at the bow we call leading stars, the ones at the stern are the trailing stars. This is a very valuable concept for learning to find directions from the stars. The concept is elaborated upon in Emergency Navigation. In the Big dipper, the cup leads and the handle trails; in scorpio, the head leads and the tail trails, etc.

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