NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Latitude by noon Sun sight
From: John D. Howard
Date: 2019 Dec 4, 09:49 -0800
From: John D. Howard
Date: 2019 Dec 4, 09:49 -0800
Mike,
You are correct, time is not critical for Latitude from a noon sight.
It is 1776, and I am sailing between England and New York. On board I have a paper with the sun's dec. listed every day. Today, at midnight the sun was S 22d 10m. Tomorrow it will be S 22d 18m, about 1/3 minute per hour.
My only Longitude is from dead reconing, but where I am one hour is about 600 miles.If my DR is within 600 NM of my true location ( east-west ) my estamate of time is within one hour. Taking out dec. from my paper ( almanac ), estamate my time from my DR longitude, add 1/3 minutes per hour to midnights dec. I should be within one minute arc of the true dec.
Hope this helps.
John H.
