Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
It is impossible to determine longitude with an accuracy better than 10 nautical miles (19 km) by means of a noon sight without averaging techniques. A noon sight is called a Meridian Altitude. [2] While it is very easy to determine the observer's latitude at noon without knowing the exact time, longitude cannot accurately be measured at noon.
As with latitude and longitude, the values are bounded by ±90° and ±180° respectively. Positive latitudes are north of the equator, negative latitudes are south of the equator. Positive longitudes are east of the Prime Meridian; negative longitudes are west of the Prime Meridian. Latitude and longitude are usually expressed in that sequence ...
Informally, specifying a geographic location usually means giving the location's latitude and longitude. The numerical values for latitude and longitude can occur in a number of different units or formats: [2] sexagesimal degree: degrees, minutes, and seconds : 40° 26′ 46″ N 79° 58′ 56″ W
In this case the latitude is 51.455558, and the longitude is -2.605047. The reverse is possible by entering the lat and long into the search bar, with a space between them. Copying the coordinates from the URL can be made easier with a Javascript-supporting browser, by adding any of the following bookmarklets (create a new bookmark with this ...
Thus longitude at sea could only be estimated from dead reckoning (DR) – by using estimations of speed and course from a known starting position – at a time when longitude determination on land was becoming increasingly accurate. To compensate for longitude uncertainty, navigators have sometimes relied on their accurate knowledge of latitude.
A geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude. [1] It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used type of the various spatial reference systems that are in use, and forms the basis for most others.
The Pythagorean theorem is used to calculate the distance between points in a plane. Even over short distances, the accuracy of geographic distance calculations which assume a flat Earth depend on the method by which the latitude and longitude coordinates have been projected onto the plane.
Vincenty's formulae are two related iterative methods used in geodesy to calculate the distance between two points on the surface of a spheroid, developed by Thaddeus Vincenty (1975a). They are based on the assumption that the figure of the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and hence are more accurate than methods that assume a spherical Earth, such ...