Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa, with an area of 28,000 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name evokes its location near both the Equator and the Gulf of Guinea. As of 2021, the country had a population of 1,468,777.
The government's official policy is one of nonalignment. In its search for assistance to meet the goal of national reconstruction, the government of Equatorial Guinea has established diplomatic relations with numerous European and Third World countries. Having achieved independence under UN sponsorship, Equatorial Guinea feels a special kinship with that organization. It became the 126th UN member on November 12, 1968. Equatorial Guinea served as a non-permanent member on the United Nations Security Council from 2017 to 2019.
A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation.
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space without having to rely solely on estimated positional calculations, commonly known as "dead reckoning", made in the absence of satellite navigation or other similar modern electronic or digital positioning means.
William Austin Burt was an American scientist, inventor, legislator, millwright, justice of the peace, school inspector, postmaster, judge, builder, businessman, surveyor and soldier. He first was a builder of sawmills, but his main interest was that of surveying. Burt built sawmills in an area that is now the city of Port Huron, Michigan. He built an excellent reputation for his accurate surveying work on public lands. He became a government deputy surveyor and trained many young men in several states how to become professional surveyors. Burt surveyed boundaries in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa starting as early as 1833. He involved his five sons in surveying and each became a government deputy surveyor.
Westing (By Musket and Sextant) is a compilation of the early EPs and singles by American indie rock band Pavement. It features all the tracks from their first three EPs, Slay Tracks (1933–1969), Demolition Plot J-7, and Perfect Sound Forever, as well as the single mix of "Summer Babe," its B-sides, and two compilation tracks.
In celestial navigation, lunar distance is the angular distance between the Moon and another celestial body. The lunar distances method uses this angle, also called a lunar, and a nautical almanac to calculate Greenwich time if so desired, or by extension any other time. That calculated time can be used in solving a spherical triangle. The theory was first published by Johannes Werner in 1524, before the necessary almanacs had been published. A fuller method was published in 1763 and used until about 1850 when it was superseded by the marine chronometer. A similar method uses the positions of the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
The navigational triangle or PZX triangle is a spherical triangle used in astronavigation to determine the observer's position on the globe. It is composed of three reference points on the celestial sphere:
Fuertes Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the North Campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The observatory was designed by L.P. Burnham, Cornell Professor of Architecture and completed in fall of 1917. It was originally used by the Civil Engineering Department as an instructional field office for navigation and surveying. Today, the observatory is primarily used for public outreach, welcoming over two thousand visitors per year with open houses on clear Friday nights.
In astronomy, sextants are devices depicting a sixth of a circle, used primarily for measuring the position of stars. There are two types of astronomical sextants, mural instruments and frame-based instruments.
Equatorial Guinea – United States relations are bilateral relations between Equatorial Guinea and the United States.
Depth sounding, often simply called sounding, is measuring the depth of a body of water. Data taken from soundings are used in bathymetry to make maps of the floor of a body of water, such as the seabed topography.
McMillin Observatory was an astronomical observatory built around 1895 on the campus of Ohio State University. Named after Emerson McMillin and operated by the university, the observatory closed in 1968 and its telescope later moved to Ballreich Observatory. The observatory was equipped with photographic cameras, a filar micrometer, and a custom Brashear spectroscope. The observatory had two main focuses, education and at least one astronomic scientific research study focus.
The Ulugh Beg Observatory is an observatory in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, built in the 1420s by the Timurid astronomer Ulugh Beg. Islamic astronomers who worked at the observatory include Al-Kashi, Ali Qushji, and Ulugh Beg himself. The observatory was destroyed in 1449 and rediscovered in 1908.
Spencer, Browning & Rust was a London firm that manufactured instruments for navigational use during the 18th and 19th centuries. The predecessor company of Spencer and Browning was established by William Spencer and Samuel Browning in 1778, before they entered into partnership with Ebenezer Rust in 1784. After the death of Ebenezer Rust's son, the successor business was known as Spencer, Browning & Co. The firm of Spencer, Browning & Rust made a variety of navigational instruments, including octants and sextants.
The Giuseppe S. Vaiana Astronomical Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, housed inside the Palazzo dei Normanni. It is one of the research facilities of the National Institute of Astrophysics. The observatory carries out research projects in the field of astronomy and astrophysics including the study of solar and stellar coronas, stellar evolution and of the supernova remnants.
The Greeks studied the results of the measurements of latitude by the explorer Pytheas who voyaged to Britain and beyond, as far as the Arctic Circle, in 325 BC. They used several methods to measure latitude, including the height of the Sun above the horizon at midday, measured using a gnōmōn ; the length of the day at the summer solstice, and the elevation of the Sun at winter solstice.
Burt's solar compass or astronomical compass is a surveying instrument that makes use of the Sun's direction instead of magnetism. William Austin Burt invented his solar compass in 1835. The solar compass works on the principle that the direction to the Sun at a specified time can be calculated if the position of the observer on the surface of the Earth is known, to a similar precision. The direction can be described in terms of the angle of the Sun relative to the axis of rotation of the planet.
