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from a student in my celestial navigation class:

If one were on the Great Plains (of the US, for our non-US members)
could one take a sextant shot and get a LOP with reasonable accuracy?
The Great Plains are a vast area of what appears to be totally flat land.

My first instinct was (and still is) to say "no."   I don't believe the
human eye could distinguish a one degree slope in the ground, and so the
Great Plains easily could undulate.

But I also wondered if I were lost in my covered wagon with nothing but
a sextant and a Nautical Almanac, could I get a reasonable LOP?

I've driven from St Louis to Denver.  You cross vast areas of what
appears to be totally flat ground ("on a clear day you would be able to
see Pike's Peak except for the curvature of the earth" was a saying when
I was a student at the University of Illinois).

Let's assume it's truly flat ground.   Back of the envelope, the
distance is 1000 miles and the elevation gain is one mile.   That's a
right triangle with a hypotenuse of 1000 and an opposite side of 1.
Sine of a small angle is approximately equal to the angle itself
expressed in radians.   So the angle is 1/1000 radians or 3.5 minutes of
arc.

Assuming no undulation in the ground, getting a LOP that's off by 3.5
miles ain't bad.

Thoughts/comments?

   

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