NavList:

Lu, you wrote:
"Entering lat/long into Google Maps is extremely simple -- just type in a pair of numbers."

Yep. Simple as that. Google Maps also understands degrees, minutes, and seconds, but it's picky about the exact syntax. Drop this in the search box at Google Maps: 41 56' 53" N, 87 39' 20" W. That should take you to second base at Wrigley Field here in Chicago. Based on some quick experiments, the N/S, E/W tags are critical. You can leave out seconds and minutes and even the comma separator, so searching on "40 N 74 W" takes you to a spot just a few miles off the New Jersey coast. The hash marks on minutes and seconds are optional. Searching on "41 21 46.9 N 71 57 48.4 W" takes you to the exact spot where I was teaching Introductory Celestial Navigation in the former library building at Mystic Seaport this past weekend. And decimal degrees work, too. Searching on "0.0 N 91.3488 W" takes you to a spot in the Galapagos Islands.

If no one has mentioned it, there's also a very easy way to invert this and get the lat, lon pair from a point. Right-click on the map at the desired point. From the sub-menu, select "What's here?". The decimal lat/lon will now appear in the search box. Can anyone figure out a way to make this happen in iOS (iPhone, iPad) or in Android ?

-FER
PS: Congratulations to Alex for the most informative subject text we've seen in ages: "Question to the list". Bravo! ;)

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