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Re: Q: how to calculate refraction at higher altitudes on land?
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2002 Feb 28, 10:03 -0800
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2002 Feb 28, 10:03 -0800
I am specifically trying to determine the elevation of my house. The topographic maps of my area are decades old. They do not show our streets or houses, and in fact the area has been graded to some extent as well, so even finding my exact location via GPS and then looking on the map only gives a ballpark figure. Since SA has been turned off, the GPS gives a range of elevations from 580 feet to 650 feet. The Garmin GPS 3 tends to wander over this range. I am trying to get a better value. I have a high quality Chelsea barometer, a Garmin GPS, and many sextants. I have high mountains behind my house, lots of clouds, and the only kind of horizon I'll ever see is an artificial one. In the winter, the sun comes up behind the mountain at about 11AM and goes down about 12:30PM! Given these constraits and tools, can I get a better estimate of my elevation? -----Original Message----- From: Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of Dov Kruger Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 7:41 AM To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Subject: Re: Q: how to calculate refraction at higher altitudes on land? Oops! Dan, At high angles (above 45 or so) you will have so little refraction in the first place that any reduction in it won't make a significant difference with what I originally said. You can just do your atmospheric correction and that's more than it deserves. But at the lower angles, the normal correction for pressure will presumably be too great, because the reason the pressure is low is that you are high, not because your whole region is experiencing low pressure. In the worst case, consider you are looking down at the horizon. Near the horizon, your line of sight is passing through sea-level air. Halfway, it is passing through air at half your altitude. Since the correction is small in any case, why not just try to divide it in half and use that? You know the upper bound (no pressure correction) and the lower bound (full pressure correction) so you know exactly how bad your assumption can be. Why not send us the raw data when you do it so we can take a look? cheers, Dov