Sextants are known for theirprecision. The material and design of sextants can rid them of sources of error that would otherwise plague sextant measurements. Metal sextants in particular don't have to deal with issues of refraction, oblateness (a measurement of curvature) of the Earth and data...
If you're a person with normal vision acuity — a rating of 20/20— and you gaze horizontally from around 5 feet (152.4 centimeters) above the ground, you can see about 3 miles (5 kilometers) into the distance, which is the point at which the Earth's curvature bends away so that t...
patiently moving under the cover of brush or night. But theynever travel alone. Snipers teams often have to stay completely still for hours or days at a time to avoid detection, waiting for the right moment to take the shot. In the next section, we'll learn how sniper teams work togethe...
Zip back to the ancient world and you'd encounter two basic types of astrolabes. The first type, known as a planispheric astrolabe, helped astronomers calculate the positions of celestial objects. All early astrolabes were of the planispheric sort until seafaring folks saw how useful the inst...
To: Flying non-stop from Pittsford to Niagara Falls Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Pittsford, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great ...
The formula used in this code only accounts for the UTM zone and hemisphere based on the latitude and longitude values. It does not take into account the curvature of the Earth’s surface, which can lead to inaccuracies in the UTM coordinates. If you need this, then you can use the foll...
Remember that this module is supposed to be usable on different planets. We first convert our deltas to degrees. The latitude means that if we get a positive delta, we go North. A negative one and we go South. With that in mind, we also want to respect the curvature of the earth. ...
To calculate the aspect at each location, a quadratic or biquadratic surface is fitted to the neighborhood cells using the Least Squares Method (LSM). A surface normal is calculated at the cell location from that surface. At the same location, an ellipsoid normal perpendicular to the tangent pl...
Detail how, if Earth's orbit were twice the diameter it is now, that would affect stellar parallax and our ability to measure distances. Why is the earth's orbital velocity fastest at perihelion? How would you calculate the curvature of the Earth? Use these equations: r aphelion = a ( ...
To: Flying non-stop from Concord (California) to Menomonee Falls Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Concord, California and Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually ...