Posted: 9/10/2009 10:53:07 AM EDT
| Ok, so I know that you can point the hour hand at the sun, and split the difference between noon and the hour hand, and that way is south (for northern hemisphere. BUT, what about 8am vs 8pm. I tried it today, and of course, one of them points in the wrong direction. |
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http://www.onebag.com/popups/wcompass.html
click on the text link that says: orient yourself using the sun |
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Quoted:
Have you ever seen a watch that has an hour hand that circles the dial once in 24 hours??? They look like this >>>
Ok, so I know that you can point the hour hand at the sun, and split the difference between noon and the hour hand, and that way is south (for northern hemisphere. BUT, what about 8am vs 8pm. I tried it today, and of course, one of them points in the wrong direction. 
In the Northern hemisphere, the sun archs across the southern sky... if you point the hour hand (24h format) at the sun, the 12 o'clock position (2400) points north. Using a 24hour dial you can't screw up 8am and 8pm... if you don't have a watch with a 24hour dial, imagine it (multiply every numbers on the dial by 2 and then figure our where the hour hand should be)... 
In the watch above, the time is about 8:08pm. The red hand is usually referred to as a "GMT" hand and it is set to GMT (aka UCT or Zulu time). To use a watch as a compass, you (obviously) use the hand indicating local time. Also, the watch should be set to "standard" time in your time zone - not "dailight saving time" <GMT hands are almost always 24hour hands even if the primary hour hand is a 12hour hand... many watches have GMT hands. If you set the GMT hand to local "standard" time, you can use the GMT hand to find North>
Good luck! |