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How do you identify latitude?

Updated: 8/10/2023
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14y ago

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Think of the Earth as a circle with a center. The flat circle is made by the Equator. From the center you draw a line intersecting the surface of the earth you're measuring. And then you measure the angle the line from the center of the earth to that surface makes with the flat circle. And there you have your latitude :)

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14y ago
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9y ago

A sextant is used to calculate the angle of celestial bodies (The sun, certain stars etc) relative to the distant horizon. This combined with an accurate time piece allows the latitude to be calculated mathematically.

If we know that the elevation of the sun is at noon at Greenwich (UST GMT) relative to the horizon, we can measure it at our current location at noon and compare the difference between them against tables which factor in any errors (like height above sea level which changes the horizon distance), to calculate our latitude.

Once this was the only way to determine position at sea (apart from visual references) but in more modern times the seaman has a number of systems available to him such as Decca navigation systems, SimRad which can be used to locate latitude (and longitude) however these days Satellite navigation has made these more primitive systems redundant.

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14y ago

Latitudes are horizontal imaginary lines that run around the earth. It's centre line is the equator and goes till the two poles - north and south poles respectively.

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