Finding your latitude and longitude
You need to know your latitude before you order
your Spot-On Sundial - the angle of the gnomon (which casts the
shadow) has to be the right one for your location, as described
on the models page.
You also need to know your longitude later on when you come to
set up your Spot-On Sundial, so it is worth
writing it down for later.
In the United Kingdom
We recommend www.streetmap.co.uk
(which is very useful for many other things apart from finding your
latitude and longitude). You can bring up a map of any locality
in the UK by keying in its postcode, street name (in London), place
name, telephone dialing code, OS grid reference, Landranger grid
or latitude and longitude. Each map has grid squares of 500m., and
gives the latitude and longitude under the map.
Click on any of the links below; you will find a search box for
your location under the map. Note particularly that the latitude
and longitude is given in degrees, minutes, and seconds - you may
need to convert the minutes and seconds to decimals of degrees if
you are going to use them in a calculation.
For example, the map for the Tylers
and Bricklayers sundial at Blackfriars has an arrow pointing
at the position of the sundial and states "The location is at 532025m
180818m ( N51:30:37 W0:05:50). The latitude is the figure preceded
by N, and the longitude is preceded by W for West (or E for East)"
Other examples are the Tylers and Bricklayers sundial at Greenwich
which states "The location is at 539746m 179666m (N51:29:53 E0:00:48)"
and an example outside London is the Sustrans sundial at Lincoln
which states "The location is at 499685m 370945m (N53:13:33 W0:30:24)"
In the United States
In the United States, the form below will find the latitude and
longitude by typing in the place name or the zip code. For example,
typing in the name of our sister community, Epsom NH, produces
Epsom NH
Location: 43.22238N; 71.33562W
together with links to a map which you can customise to your particular
needs and census data.
For all other countries
A very good source is the location database of Heavens Above at
http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.asp
This excellent site will also give you star maps, satellite maps,
and lots more, all customised to your particular location
Other sites you can try are http://gnnpswww.nima.mil/geonames/GNS/
and http://www.mapblast.com
Links to other sites giving latitude and longitude are given in
the excellent What's
Your Latitude page which we recommend for further reading.
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