Wednesday, February 29, 2012

How can I find longitude and latitude in the wilderness?

Hey everyone, I'm doing a project called La Isla for school, which involves getting stranded on an island with 5 other people and surviving. One of my tasks is to discover tools or ways to find out the longitude and latitude of my location. Could you guys tell me any ways or methods possible, without computers or GPS's, I have no technology on me on the island.



P.S. If you got the answer from a website, could you also include the link? Thanks alot guys.How can I find longitude and latitude in the wilderness?
I think that you would still remain lost. You stated that you have no technology on the Island then to know your Latitude and Longitude would be of no use as you could not tell anyone - no radio.

As qbtrack has pointed out you could determine your latitude in the Northern hemisphere by measuring the angle from the horizon to the Polar star. But how are you going to measure the angle?

Longitude is measured with a clock or chronometer but if you do not know the time at GMT then you cannot work out your Longitude even if you could measure the exact time that the sun reached its zenith (highest point).

Sorry, you are still lost.

Finding North, South, East and West is easy.
KiwiPete is too dismissive. For shame. First, it's trivial to construct a quadrant to measure the angle. Second, even if you can't comm. with the outside world, knowing your latitude could still be useful for any number of reasons. When you're stranded, any small piece of information can be vital.

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How can I find longitude and latitude in the wilderness?
Latitutde is easily determined from the stars. Longitude is another matter entirely.
latitude can be determined by measuring the angle between the horizon and the North Star. If you are in the southern hemisphere however that will not work. Can't remember longitude.

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