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The Sextant reading is known as the 'Sextant Altitude'. This is corrected by use of tables to a 'True Altitude'. The actual declination and hour angle of the celestial body are found from astronomical tables for the time of the measurement and together with the 'True Altitude' are put into a formula with the assumed latitude.
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 ...
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 ...
Sight reduction. In astronavigation, sight reduction is the process of deriving from a sight (in celestial navigation usually obtained using a sextant) the information needed for establishing a line of position, generally by intercept method . Sight is defined as the observation of the altitude, and sometimes also the azimuth, of a celestial ...
The latitude of the North Pole is 90° N, and the latitude of the South Pole is 90° S. [9] Mariners calculated latitude in the Northern Hemisphere by sighting the pole star with a sextant and using sight reduction tables to correct for height of eye and atmospheric refraction. The height of Polaris in degrees above the horizon is the latitude ...
Finding the latitude requires measuring the vertical angle (altitude) of X from the horizon using a sextant, the declination of X from a reference book, and a set of sight reduction Tables. The sun, moon, and planets move relative to the celestial sphere, but only the stars' hour angles change with the rotation of the earth, completing a full ...
Sextant (astronomy) In astronomy, sextants are devices depicting a sixth of a circle, used primarily for measuring the position of stars. There are two types of astronomical sextants, mural instruments and frame-based instruments. They are of significant historical importance, but have been replaced over time by transit telescopes, other ...
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