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A modern military compass, with included sight device for aligning. A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with magnetic north.
[24] [64] Al-Qibjāqī described a needle-and-bowl compass used for navigation on a voyage he took from Syria to Alexandria in 1242. [24] Since the author describes having witnessed the use of a compass on a ship trip some forty years earlier, some scholars are inclined to antedate its first appearance in the Arab world accordingly. [24]
A beam compass and a regular compass Using a compass A compass with an extension accessory for larger circles A bow compass capable of drawing the smallest possible circles. A compass, also commonly known as a pair of compasses, is a technical drawing instrument that can be used for inscribing circles or arcs.
Today electronic computers or calculators are used. Other traditional aids used included tables (trigonometric, logarithms, etc.) and slide rules. Dividers used for measuring lengths of lines and approximate lengths of non-linear paths on a chart. Nautical almanac used to determine the position in the sky of a celestial body after a sight has ...
Floating-card compass with prismatic sight (bearing 220° through eyepiece). The marine hand compass, or hand bearing compass|hand-bearing compass as it is termed in nautical use, has been used by small-boat or inshore sailors since at least the 1920s to keep a running course or to record precise bearings to landmarks on shore in order to determine position via the resection technique.
The true mariner's compass using a pivoting needle in a dry box was invented in Europe no later than 1300. [19] [35] Nautical charts called portolan charts began to appear in Italy at the end of the 13th century. [36] However, their use did not seem to spread quickly: there are no reports of the use of a nautical chart on an English vessel ...
A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical direction automatically. A gyrocompass makes use of one of the seven fundamental ways to determine the heading of a vehicle. [1]
Silva Field baseplate compass on a map. Silva Sweden AB is an outdoors products company that sells handheld compasses and other navigational equipment including GPS tools, mapping software, aircraft altimeters, and marine navigation tools.