Hi Rudolf & other shadowwatchers

Not a place for my holidays.
49.37 S 135 W is somewhere half between the south-points of New Zealand and
South-America. The weatherforecast for the region is a sunny day and
temperature about -5 degrees Celsius. A cold place at sea, but perhaps we
can see the sunrise and the sunset when it is not too hazy.

Hein van Winkel
52 05 N  4 24 E

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Namens R.Hooijenga
Verzonden: maandag 13 juni 2005 23:21
Aan: [email protected]
Onderwerp: RE: Deriving Lat & Lon from Sunrise & Sunset

Hello sundialeers,

I think I could guess the basics behind the method Brooke describes.

>From sunrise and sunset, get noon. True noon,corrected with EOT and
expressed in UTC, would give you longitude, thus: 

NOON(utc) - 12 hours = (degrees WEST) / 15

>From sunset and sunrise, we also have the half daylight length t, for which
we have our T-shirt formula:

- cos(t) = tan(decl) tan(lat)

which we solve for lat.

How sunset and sunrise are determined, I don't know (yes, a photocell, but
what constitutes "sunset"? In Holland, it does not get dark anytime during
the night, this time of year - then again, it certainly is a lot darker that
during the day, even if it is raining again).


Example
Assume we see a sunrise at 17:00 utc and a sunset at 01:00 (which is
conveniently written as 25:00); we get

noon = (25+17)/2 = 21.00 utc.
eot is about zero today (June 13), so we get corrected noon is also 21.00
utc
longitude = (15*21 -12) degs West, or 135 degs West.

Also, t = (25-17)/2 = 4 hours.
Now the half day length is 4 hours, corresponding to 60 degrees.
The declination of the sun is 23.23 degrees north today, so:

- cos (60) = tan(23.23) tan(lat)
-0.5 = 0.429 tan (lat), so that tan (lat) = -1.166 and finally lat = -49.37
degrees, or 49.37 degs South

Our animal was at 49.37 South, 135 West today - wherever that may be.

Rudolf



-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Namens Brooke Clarke
Verzonden: maandag 13 juni 2005 21:06
Aan: [email protected]
Onderwerp: Deriving Lat & Lon from Sunrise & Sunset

Hi:

There is an animal tracking system that records the times of sunrise and
sunset (along with the date and time) and then sends that (and some other
stuff) to a central station.  In the central station they process the
sunrise and sunset times to find out the Lat and Lon of the animal (maybe to
1 degree).


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