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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Equal altitude puzzle from a movie
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2016 Dec 6, 14:25 -0800
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2016 Dec 6, 14:25 -0800
Repeating myself...
There is a movie scene (details later) where a navigator is observing Orion low near the horizon. Bellatrix is about 5° high. Betelgeuse and Mintaka are at exactly the same altitude, about 10° high. Given that the altitudes are the same within, let's say, 0.1°, and that the stars' altitudes are 10° +/-3° (just to put specific limits on it), what is your latitude? And what is the uncertainty in that latitude? This is a type of "latitude by double altitudes" but in this case it's a pair of identical altitudes observed at the same time.
And this time with an image to illustrate.
Frank Reed
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