Will do my best to explain the problem..........
In Celestial navigation there comes a time when a plotting sheet is required. Briefly a plotting sheet is a piece of paper with a latitude scale up the side and a longitude scale along the bottom. The thing is the scale needs to be correct for your location. Commercial plotting sheets are available but I have a book that describes how to quickly produce your own and I am not at all sure whether the instructions are correct.
On a piece of paper draw lines along the bottom and up the left hand side.
From where the lines meet in the bottom left hand corner draw a line at an angle corresponding to the latitude where you think you are (will be close enough).
Put some marks on the bottom line each one representing 10 degrees of longitude.
From a couple of adjacent marks draw vertical lines up to meet the line drawn at an angle.
The distance between where the 2 lines meet the line drawn at an angle becomes your latitude scale and represents 10 degrees of latitude or 10 miles (of the nautical variety).
Just mark your latitude scale accordingly and you have your plotting sheet.
The problem here I think is it does not take into account the curvature of the Earth with an error gradually being introduced up to 45 degrees then the error lessening towards the poles???
Mike
In Celestial navigation there comes a time when a plotting sheet is required. Briefly a plotting sheet is a piece of paper with a latitude scale up the side and a longitude scale along the bottom. The thing is the scale needs to be correct for your location. Commercial plotting sheets are available but I have a book that describes how to quickly produce your own and I am not at all sure whether the instructions are correct.
On a piece of paper draw lines along the bottom and up the left hand side.
From where the lines meet in the bottom left hand corner draw a line at an angle corresponding to the latitude where you think you are (will be close enough).
Put some marks on the bottom line each one representing 10 degrees of longitude.
From a couple of adjacent marks draw vertical lines up to meet the line drawn at an angle.
The distance between where the 2 lines meet the line drawn at an angle becomes your latitude scale and represents 10 degrees of latitude or 10 miles (of the nautical variety).
Just mark your latitude scale accordingly and you have your plotting sheet.
The problem here I think is it does not take into account the curvature of the Earth with an error gradually being introduced up to 45 degrees then the error lessening towards the poles???
Mike