Abstract
THE sun compass is designed for use anywhere in a belt round the world within two hundred miles north and south of a line from Birmingham to Berlin. Knowing the date and the local time, a simple setting of the sun compass enables one to take the sun's bearings to an accuracy of about 2°, and with practice an accuracy of 1° is possible. A rotating disk has the months marked with dates which vary from six to twenty days. Thus September 16–22 is included in one date, June 1–21 in another, and so on, and a 'model sun' for each of these periods is marked on the disk. On a transparent graticule are marked the hours from 4 to 20 and also curves showing the sun's bearings from 50° to 300°. The bearings are given for every 10°; but it is easy to interpolate to an accuracy of about 1°.
Sun Compass
By Francis Chichester. Pp. 10 + Compass. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1944.) 5s. net.
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D., M. Sun Compass. Nature 156, 318 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156318c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156318c0