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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The elegant 2 body fix
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2005 Jun 4, 11:30 -0400
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2005 Jun 4, 11:30 -0400
On Jun 4, 2005, at 10:52 AM, Peter Fogg wrote: >> From: Fred Hebard >> Without knowing GMT, one could not determine longitude from an >> altitude >> of the Sun when it is due East or West. I also wonder how much the >> altitude of the sun varies with azimuth at various locations when it >> is >> due East or West; it's azimuth can only be measured to perhaps 0.1 >> degrees, how much would that limit the precision of the measurement? > > LINEAR REGRESSION IN REVERSE > The moment is calculated using the DR (assumed position, and the > accuracy is > dependent on this). Then as many sights as possible are made over > about five > minutes, a few minutes on either side of the desired moment. These are > then > plotted on a simple graph; time on one axis, altitude on the other. The > slope of apparent rise or fall is compared with the pattern of sights > to > find the same slope that best fits this pattern. Then the desired > moment is > used to intersect with the slope to indicate the altitude to be used > for > sight reduction. The azimuth is then 90 or 270 degrees, the LOP runs > due > north/south, thus a line of longitude. > Peter, In pseudocode, or pseudomath, I was wondering about d(alt)/d(az) for various spots and times on the earth, and wondering whether the slope is appropriate for the limited precision of azimuth determinations. Using only altitude, as you propose, it seems that the problem is underdetermined: trying to fit more variables than are observed. Here you are proposing using d(alt)/d(DR,t) to find DR. However, as I said, I haven't worked this out and am proceeding on a very rough, very ill-honed intuition. fred