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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Prime Meridian
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2014 Mar 18, 16:45 -0700
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2014 Mar 18, 16:45 -0700
Jackson McDonald wrote: > Next there were tedious, scientific (and not-so-scientific) deliberations about whether meridians of longitude should be measured 360 degrees from west to east, 360 degrees from east to west, or 180 degrees both east and west of the Prime Meridian. There's still no universal convention. Astronomy sometimes measures terrestrial longitude east to 360. For example, the JPL HORIZONS system will accept longitude -150 (= 150 west) or the equivalent +210 for the observing site, but in either case its output says +210. I have had to adjust longitudes with a calculator because they were "illegal" according to the program I was trying to use. Writers of astronomical software, don't get too zealous with your error checking. --
