Saturday, February 4, 2012

How can you find an exact point with Latitude and Longitude?

i want to figure this out the old fashion way. [without using Google Maps]How can you find an exact point with Latitude and Longitude?
Using the stars at night %26amp; the Sun during the day and also using a sextant.
How "old fashioned" do you want to get? And how accurate? Before Google Maps, people used paper maps.



Do you have the latitude/longitude numbers, and you want to go to that place? Or is it the other way around, you are at some place, and you want to know the latitude/longitude? Either way .... use a GPS receiver, or a map with lat/long lines, and go to the place you are interested in.



A lat/long number like 32.63813713044451 is ridiculous. The 7th digit after the decimal point (the "1") represents 1.1 cm on the Earth's surface. Even a first-order government survey will have a hard time reaching that accuracy. The other digits ("3044451") are just noise. Please, just write 32.63813 degrees. Only professional surveyors have any business adding an additional "71", because they know about the different systems of latitude and longitude. (Do you know what NAD27 means? Or WGS84?).How can you find an exact point with Latitude and Longitude?
These lines are in degrees minutes and seconds. The lines of longitude intersect the lines of latitude. When you take the longitude and latitude, the lines intersect to show your location.

For example you could be at N 32 degrees 49 minutes 20 seconds W 117 degrees 56 minutes 12 seconds.

Just 32 and -117 is not really accurate enough.

\How can you find an exact point with Latitude and Longitude?
Time. And measuring the sun's altitude.

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