NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2026 Jun 6, 11:52 -0700
Here's another screen capture from that mediocre series "World War II with Tom Hanks" that I mentioned in my last message. It's apparently the shadow of a Henkel He 111 bomber. What do you think: is the identification correct? Is that the correct airplane?
We may assume that the photo was taken from the aircraft. Here's the puzzle: how high was the aircraft when the photo was taken? Hint: measure the shadow penumbra. The minimum altitude would be correct if the shadow is directly under the aircraft. But of course we're looking off to the side. Does that "look-down angle" impact the altitude estimate?
Note that you need one key parameter from celestial navigation to work this out. It's a number that was correct in southern England in 1940 as well as in 1740. And it's correct today in my backyard in Rhode Island. And it was correct five thousand years ago in Egypt. And it will be correct on the surface of the Moon next year. :)
Frank Reed
