NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Compass - southern hemisphere/northern hemisphere
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Oct 20, 20:20 +0000
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Oct 20, 20:20 +0000
Lisa, Look in the list's archives around June 20 of this year, for a thread with the subject line "Historical Magnetic Variation/Declination". We pretty much thrashed the topic to death then. Trevor Kenchington You wrote: > Our hand bearing compass is one designed for the southern hemisphere, as > we're in Australia. I remember being taught that it's important to have > a southern hemisphere compass in the southern latitudes and a northern > hemisphere compass in the northern latitudes. > > What's the principle involved here, and how did the early navigators (eg > going from Europe to rounding Cape Horn etc.) compensate? > > Thanks, Lisa > -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus