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Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi
Does anyone know enough about low-tech astronomy and navigation tools to suggest which ones would still be useful on Middle-earth, when it was flat?
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My impression is that stars in Middle-Earth behaved very much like those in the skies of Earth. What is not clear is if they were close in comparison to the size of Middle-Earth, in which case you could tell something about your north-south position from their height in the sky, or distant, when you could not.
The only information on that I can think of is the tale of Eärendil, which suggests that they were close, and that's consistent with the reasonably ready navigation across the oceans of Middle-Earth by the Teleri and the Númenorians.
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Out of the ones in Low Tech, it looks like maybe the mekhet (TL1) and windrose (TL2) (measuring directions of fixed stars), and sunstone (TL3+1) (measuring direction of the sun) would still work.
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With close stars the windrose is not useful, because no stars are fixed. The other two work, I think.
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It isn't clear to me whether dead reckoning is possible on a flat world, or whether it makes ocean crossings feasible.
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Dead reckoning is certainly possible on a flat world, and you can certainly try to cross an ocean with any navigational method, it's just a question of how far you arrive from your target on the far side.
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The Polynesian methods aren't explained other than the stick chart, and LT doesn't say whether that relies on types of currents that only exist in the Pacific.
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No, it does not.