NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Solve this Moon photo!
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2020 Sep 28, 22:22 -0400
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2020 Sep 28, 22:22 -0400
I was hoping that some of the aviators on this forum would weigh in on commercial aircraft climb rates and traffic patterns around JFK.
I watched some take offs on runway 22R using JFK radar view, and it seemed that it was at least 4 NM, out over Long Island Sound, before aircraft reached an altitude of 4000’ that was consistent with the moon being 3 deg above the horizon. But then the azimuth would have been off.
The new estimate of 1.6 deg and 2000’ altitude puts the plane much closer to JFK, consistent with an azimuth of 110 deg.
Don Seltzer
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 4:46 PM Greg Rudzinski <NoReply_Rudzinski@fer3.com> wrote:
Frank,
I am in agreement on your best guess of the photographer position and on the trees location near the statue. If the statue torch tip is 310 feet above the photographers eye then I get an appoximate 5° Hs for the moons upper limb for the torch silhouette moon image. If the tree is 50 feet above the photographers eye then I get an appoximate 1.6° Hs for the moons lower limb on the aircraft silhouette moon image. This then puts the silhouetted plane at about 2000 feet of altitude. What do you think? This would show about a 3' difference in upper and lower moon limb refraction for the 1.6° lower limb Hs on the aircraft moon image.
Greg Rudzinski
