Wow. You're right. When you think about the importance of stars to navigation, and then what those stars must have *looked* like...the night sky must have loomed very large indeed in those guys' experience.
I am absolutely with you in the school of writing via large amounts of detail. I spent a week constructing an entire alternate history of the Seven Years' War just for the benefit of a few offhand remarks and for the character history that's guiding the characterization but that will only ever exist in my head. Right now, I am reading a really tedious book from 1851 on all the details of court-martial procedure. I also need to know the names of the ships of all the captains even if I never mention them, and who all their commissioned and warrant officers are, and... It goes on and on. Most of it will never make it to the page and it really shouldn't! But it's fun. :)
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I am absolutely with you in the school of writing via large amounts of detail. I spent a week constructing an entire alternate history of the Seven Years' War just for the benefit of a few offhand remarks and for the character history that's guiding the characterization but that will only ever exist in my head. Right now, I am reading a really tedious book from 1851 on all the details of court-martial procedure. I also need to know the names of the ships of all the captains even if I never mention them, and who all their commissioned and warrant officers are, and... It goes on and on. Most of it will never make it to the page and it really shouldn't! But it's fun. :)