Tristan
I managed to rope in a friend at the end of an evening’s BBQ and together we plumb-bobbed Polaris, set out two posts and then strung a string between them. We checked with a compass and, despite the evening’s beers, we were actually almost spot on!
The next day we checked the shadow at 1.00 (12 noon GMT) and found this lined up on our string. Impressed or what!
Richard
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Hi Richard,
I can see I’m going to need to come up with some sort of merit/badge/star system just to complete the back to school experience!
A link that I will have mentioned on the day is here:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
If you plug in your latitude and longitude, it will give you the altitude and azimuth of the sun (or moon) for a whole day by GMT. Due south is often very close to clock midday, but it can wander off it depending on your longitude and because of something called the ‘equation of time’.
All the best,
Tristan
Tags: compass, finding north, latitude, longitude, moon, polaris, shadow, sun
