NavList:

Commenting about one Bill Ritchie's Suggestion, Frank you recently raised a very interesting challenge :

QUOTE

"Of more direct navigation interest, imagine taking Moon meridian passage sights with an accurate theodolite, recording the time of culmination and calculating your latitude and longitude. [...] Perhaps using the Moon for meridian passage sights is not always a good idea. "

Heh. Funny you should mention that! We can fix this. I'm sure if any of our math-y contributors ponder it for a while, we'll see several ways to do it. It's not so different from a vessel sailing due south at some speed while taking sights around local noon.

UNQUOTE

Exactly !

(1) - During the completion of Local Apparent Noon (aka: LAN) Observations, a set of Times and Heights is first taken and recorded (Step 1) on one same single Celestial Body.

(2) - From this data set subsequently deriving LAN CULMINATION Time and Height is the next essential operation (Step 2).

(3) - And finally from the Step 2 results:

Deriving LAN MERIDIAN PASSAGE Time and Height is the 3rd essential operation (Step 3) required to easily obtain the Observer's Latitude and Longitude.

Once Culmination Time and Height are known, solving the Meridian Passage Time and Height of a Moving Navigator (Step 3) is the challenge itself earlier raised by Frank further to a suggestion from Bill.

While a solution to Step 3 for a non moving Observer has been published recently, to the best of my knowledge no exact mathematical solution specific to Step 3 has been clearly and fully documented for a moving Observer yet.

From the Culmination data this Contribution solves exactly for the Meridian Passage of a Moving Observer. It therefore performs the full scope of Step 3.

It is therefore possible for this Contribution to be totally new to the LAN saga.

I first started covering this exciting (at least for Kermit) topic within a previous thread yesterday.

But sticking to the previous thread Title / Heading could be misleading given the specifics of this current contribution.

I should have better started a new thread then with a different heading more adapted to this new topic..

Here it is now, altogether again with its 2 earlier attachments which say it all about LAN Methods.

And in particular PART II exactly and fully covers this new subject.

Special thanks to you Frank and Bill,

Kermit