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The history of longitude describes the centuries-long effort by astronomers, cartographers and navigators to discover a means of determining the longitude of any given place on Earth. The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation. In particular, for safe ocean navigation, knowledge of both latitude and longitude ...
A diagram of a typical nautical sextant, a tool used in celestial navigation to measure the angle between two objects viewed by means of its optical sight. Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the ...
In astronomy, the ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions, orbits, and pole orientations [1] of Solar System objects. Because most planets (except Mercury) and many small Solar System bodies have orbits with only slight inclinations to the ecliptic, using it as the ...
The selenographic coordinate system is used to refer to locations on the surface of Earth 's moon. Any position on the lunar surface can be referenced by specifying two numerical values, which are comparable to the latitude and longitude of Earth. The longitude gives the position east or west of the Moon's prime meridian, which is the line ...
Longitude ( / ˈlɒndʒɪtjuːd /, AU and UK also / ˈlɒŋɡɪ -/) [ 1][ 2] is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east – west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter lambda (λ). Meridians are imaginary ...
Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol α) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the March equinox to the ( hour circle of the) point in question above the Earth. [1] When paired with declination, these astronomical coordinates specify the location of a point on the ...
is the isometric latitude. [5] In the Rhumb line, as the latitude tends to the poles, φ → ± π / 2 , sin φ → ±1, the isometric latitude arsinh(tan φ) → ± ∞, and longitude λ increases without bound, circling the sphere ever so fast in a spiral towards the pole, while tending to a finite total arc length Δ s given by
Null Island is the location at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude ( 0°N 0°E ), i.e., where the prime meridian and the equator intersect. The name is often used in mapping software as a placeholder to help find and correct database entries that have erroneously been assigned the coordinates 0,0.