Talk:Longitude (book)

Untitled
I do not know what is meant by this sentence:

"Determining latitude was hard for the sun's declination for the day.[2]"

Is it better to say "... due to the sun's declination..."?--Jrm2007 (talk) 21:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * That text was vandalised back in 2009 October. I have restored it so it now reads:
 * Determining latitude was relatively easy in that it could be found from the altitude of the sun at noon with the aid of a table giving the sun's declination for the day.
 * The footnote that follows also needs attention because it appears to make latitude measurement more difficult than it is. Latitude on land and sea has always been far easier than longitude. Thank you for the heads-up. -84user (talk) 11:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Per above comment by 84user and being WP:BOLD, having seen the same problem with the follow on sentence, I deleted "However, since Polaris is not precisely at the pole, it can only provide accurate information if the precise time is known or many measurements are made over time, which made developing an accurate chronometer for long ocean voyages even more vital." It at the least would need a citation. It does not reflect the relative ease of latitude determination compared to longitude, which is a key point of this page. The position of the axis of rotation can be determined from three known stars. Consider determining latitude in the Southern hemisphere.... JamesCrook (talk) 10:04, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Longitude (book). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090107210349/http://us.penguingroup.com:80/static/rguides/us/galileos_daughter.html to http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/galileos_daughter.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Scilly Isles disaster: Sobel's book is criticized
I looked at the Wikipedia article on the Scilly Isles naval disaster of 1707, which was a major impetus toward improvements in navigation. On one point, that article criticizes this book for reporting a story as simply factual, whereas (according to that article, which provides references) the story is a legend not grounded in fact. Perhaps the article on Sobel's book should mention this criticism. Oaklandguy (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2016 (UTC)