NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Compass - southern hemisphere/northern hemisphere
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Oct 20, 20:20 +0000
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Oct 20, 20:20 +0000
Lisa,
Look in the list's archives around June 20 of this year, for a thread
with the subject line "Historical Magnetic Variation/Declination". We
pretty much thrashed the topic to death then.
Trevor Kenchington
You wrote:
> Our hand bearing compass is one designed for the southern hemisphere, as
> we're in Australia. I remember being taught that it's important to have
> a southern hemisphere compass in the southern latitudes and a northern
> hemisphere compass in the northern latitudes.
>
> What's the principle involved here, and how did the early navigators (eg
> going from Europe to rounding Cape Horn etc.) compensate?
>
> Thanks, Lisa
>
--
Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca
Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250
R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251
Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555
Science Serving the Fisheries
http://home.istar.ca/~gadus
