NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Irregular Quadrilateral Center
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2015 Feb 4, 13:42 -0800
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2015 Feb 4, 13:42 -0800
Hewitt, you wrote:
"Imagine where the figure would balance on a pin or actually cut the shape out and do it."
That doesn't work. Consider the case of a long, narrow triangle from three LOPs. The best estimate of the position is actually very close to the short side of the triangle rather than out in the middle of the triangle, which is where the center of mass (balance point) would be located. The shape of the figure (triangle, quadrilateral, complicated polygon) is seriously misleading. It provides neither an estimate of the correct fix, nor a proper estimation of the size and shape of the error ellipse!
Frank Reed
Conanicut Island USA
