NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Destination from course and distance
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2005 Feb 20, 14:56 -0800
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2005 Feb 20, 14:56 -0800
As an example, I'll do a great circle course from Los Angeles to Tokyo with HO 229 sight reduction tables. After that I'll reverse the calculation, which is what the original poster wanted. 34N 118W Los Angeles 36N 140E Tokyo Use Los Angeles as the "observer" and Tokyo as the "star". The "LHA" is the longitude of Tokyo, measured west from Los Angeles: 360 - 118 - 140 = 102 degrees. Looking in the tables for LHA 102 and "latitude same name as declination", we find Hc = 10.9 deg and Zn = 306. The latter of course is the great circle bearing to Tokyo. Distance to Tokyo = 90 - 10.9 = 79.1 degrees = 4750 miles. Now let's work that backward: depart Los Angeles on course 306, follow a great circle for 4750 miles. The computed endpoint should be Tokyo's coordinates. Let's see. To solve this problem, consider Los Angeles the "pole" and the north pole the "observer". Therefore, we use the actual latitude of Los Angeles as before. On the other hand, "LHA" is different: at the "pole" (Los Angeles), measure clockwise from the "observer" (north pole) to the "star" (Tokyo). In other words, use the initial great circle course (306) as the "LHA". For "declination", convert 4750 miles to degrees: 4750 / 60 = 79 degrees (to the nearest whole degree). Subtract that from 90 to convert distance to "declination". So dec = 11 deg and is the same name as lat. (If distance were greater that 90 deg, it would have contrary name.) Enter HO 229 with LHA 306, lat 34, dec 11 same name. The table gives Hc = 36 (to the nearest degree). That's a direct readout of the endpoint latitude. Longitude requires a little more work. The table says Zn = 102. This is measured at the "observer" (north pole) clockwise from the "pole" (observer) to the "star" (Tokyo). In other words, Zn = 102 means the destination is 102 degrees west of Los Angeles. This corresponds to longitude 140 east. So the calculation produced the correct latitude and longitude. Intermediate points on the great circle can be found on the same page by varying the declination. Since dec 90 is zero distance from the starting point, and dec 11 is all the way to the destination, dec 50 would be the approximate midpoint of the great circle, etc. I used HO 229, but any of the sight reduction intercept methods can solve these problems. HO 299 includes instructions for interpolating a more accurate solution instead of simply working to the nearest degree as I did. But I suspect the extra work wouldn't result in a significantly shorter voyage. Certainly it's more convenient to navigate between waypoints when they're at whole degree intersections.