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If the table is correct I don't see why not. If you shoot a
series around local apparent noon the height of the sun at
the peak will tell you how far from the sun's zenith
position you are, and the declination for that day will
tell you how far north or south the sun gets.

You wouldn't have the other info about corrections that a
nautical almanac gives you, but at least you shouldn't have
too much refraction at noon in reasonable lattitudes. And,
if your watch is correct, you could sort of get longitude
too by finding when the curves peak occurred.

If you could see it shooting Polaris at dusk would be less
trouble just for lattitude.

On Tue, 11 Jan 2000 13:06:35 -0500, Richard B. Emerson
wrote:

>A friend raised an interesting question: The 2000 edition of the
>Farmer's Almanac includes a table of the Sun's declination for this
>year.  J's question is: could this table be used in a pinch to
>determine at least one's latitude?  Comments, anyone?
>
>Rick
>S/V One With The Wind, Baba 35
>



Rodney Myrvaagnes                   J36 Gjoa
Senior Editor           Electronic Products
My oyster knife is Y2K compliant

   

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