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Ah, those are some good clues!

1) "h & χ". That 'blob' was the main thing of interest in this image for
me. There's just enough detail around it to orient it properly in
Stellarium.

2) "Significant star just off the top of the image". That would be
Polaris, that simplifies things. Eyeballing it, the length of the vector
I've drawn is about how far it's off the top of the image (again using
Stellarium).

3) "The image is about 40° tall". I'll cross my fingers that this is
close to accurate. I measured the distance between the horizon and the
supposed location of Polaris to be about 94% of the height of the image
(using a ruler on my screen), so that gets me to an estimated latitude
of 38° (well, 37.6°).

Thereabouts, I hope! One could do a better job by measure pixel
distances between known stars and adjusting for distortion.

Luc


On 19/03/2025 14:35, NavList Community wrote:
> *Re: Photo challenge: what is your latitude?*
> *From: *Frank Reed
> *Date: *2025 Mar 19, 06:29 -0700
>
> David Pike: If Stellarium Desktop isn't working properly for you, you
> should try the "web app" version here: https://stellarium-web.org/
> . It's not essential for anything, but it's
> nice to have another option. :)
>
> I think I've waited long enough on this one, and I have already said
> it's /difficult/. It's time for a few clues. *First clue:* there are
> three significant navigation stars just barely out-of-frame. So useful
> they would be if they were in-frame! One of the three is off the left
> side of the image. The second is off the the lower right, either hidden
> by the horizon or lost in the low-altitude extinction. And the third
> significant star is just off the top of the image. *Second clue:* in the
> "good to know" category, I can assure you that the field of view of the
> image is not unusual. It's about 70° wide and 40° tall, so you don't
> have to worry about any telephoto zoom or weird fisheye wide-field
> effects. *Third clue:* an astronomy phrase that you might know already,
> or you can chase down if you don't: h & χ. Also see the snippet of an
> old star atlas below...
>
> Frank Reed
>
> *File: *
> [Click to enlarge.]
> 
> [Save this file.]
> 
>
> 
> 
>
>
>  
> 
>

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