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The lunar distance is the angle between the Moon and a star (or the Sun). In the above illustration the star Regulus is used. The altitudes of the two bodies are used to make corrections and determine the time. In celestial navigation, lunar distance, also called a lunar, is the angular distance between the Moon and another celestial body.
The lunar distance is on average approximately 385,000 km (239,000 mi), or 1.28 light-seconds; this is roughly 30 times Earth's diameter or 9.5 times Earth's circumference. Around 389 lunar distances make up an AU astronomical unit (roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun). Lunar distance is commonly used to express the distance to near ...
Celestial navigation uses "sights," or timed angular measurements, taken typically between a celestial body (e.g., the Sun, the Moon, a planet, or a star) and the visible horizon. Celestial navigation can also take advantage of measurements between celestial bodies without reference to the Earth's horizon, such as when the Moon and other ...
The lunar distance is the angle between a suitable star and the Moon. The dotted lines show the distances between Aldebaran and the Moon, 5 hours apart. Moon not to scale. "Lunars" or lunar distances were an early proposal for the calculation of longitude, having been first made practical by Regiomontanus in his 1474 Ephemerides Astronomicae.
Sextant. A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation. The estimation of this angle, the altitude, is known as sighting or shooting ...
Dead reckoning. The navigator plots their 9 a.m. position, indicated by the triangle, and, using their course and speed, estimates their own position at 9:30 and 10 a.m. In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating the current position of a moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and incorporating ...
The lunar lander, called Peregrine after the fastest bird in the world, appeared to have a wholly successful first leg of its trip after lifting off at 2:18 a.m. ET atop a Vulcan Centaur rocket ...
Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment from the Apollo 11 mission. Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) is the practice of measuring the distance between the surfaces of the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. The distance can be calculated from the round-trip time of laser light pulses travelling at the speed of light, which are reflected back to Earth by ...