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True north is the direction along Earth's surface towards the place where the imaginary rotational axis of the Earth intersects the surface of the Earth on its northern half, the True North Pole. True south is the direction opposite to the true north. It is important to make the distinction from magnetic north, which points towards an ever ...
True north is the direction along a meridian towards the geographic North Pole. Somewhat more formally, Bowditch defines variation as "the angle between the magnetic and geographic meridians at any place, expressed in degrees and minutes east or west to indicate the direction of magnetic north from true north. The angle between magnetic and ...
The star is the point of interest, the reference plane is the local area (e.g. a circular area with a 5 km radius at sea level) around an observer on Earth's surface, and the reference vector points to true north. The azimuth is the angle between the north vector and the star's vector on the horizontal plane. [2]
If the reference direction is north (either true north, magnetic north, or grid north), the bearing is termed an absolute bearing. In a contemporary land navigation context, true, magnetic, and grid bearings are always measured in this way, with true north, magnetic north, or grid north being 0° in a 360-degree system. [5]
A magnetic compass's user can determine true North by finding the magnetic north and then correcting for variation and deviation. Variation is defined as the angle between the direction of true (geographic) north and the direction of the meridian between the magnetic poles.
The Earth's axis of rotation remains effectively stationary throughout the year. Thus, with knowledge of the current time and geographical position in the form of latitude and longitude, which are set on the instrument using dials, an astrocompass can be sighted onto any astronomical object with a known position to give an extremely accurate reading.
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Direction determination refers to the ways in which a cardinal direction or compass point can be determined in navigation and wayfinding.The most direct method is using a compass (magnetic compass or gyrocompass), but indirect methods exist, based on the Sun path (unaided or by using a watch or sundial), the stars, and satellite navigation.