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Puzzled by coordinate location


jpamusher

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I`m posting this topic here as it seems the only appropriate spot in the forums. I was hiking recently at Island Beach State Park in NJ and tried to find a cache at co ordinates N39 46.644 W074 06.889(cache is archived but I had found it back in 09 and just wanted to visit the unique location again). Anyway,when I got home I was curious what the map location would be if I kept the cache coordinates the same but simply changed N to S. I did this and my GPS shows a point on the W coast of Argentina. Shouldn`t the point be on the E coast somewhere on a line directly south from NJ?

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The more you stare at maps (X is due N/S/E/W of Y; A is equidistant from B and C) the more you realise that if you drew a map freehand you'd be way out. I just sketched the Americas, even having read this, and my far W of S America (in Peru / Ecuador) was due S of New Orleans whereas in reality it's due S of Florida.

Draw a Prague - Vienna - Budapest triangle and then look it up. Vienna = Western Europe = furthest west, right? Wrong!

I've been to 2 spots in the old Yugoslavia - the capitals of Slovenia and Macedonia. But Ljubljana is as close to eastern France as it is to Skopje, which in turn is as close to the coast of Libya as it is to Ljubljana.

Etc etc...

Happy map-gazing!

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Once you're OK with the fact that Los Angeles is northwest of London, you can consider yourself familiar with the coordinate system.

Wait... What? The UK's latitude is in the 50s.

It's fun to live on a sphere. But I still don't understand why the Australians don't fall off.

 

We don't fall off, because we're on top of the world. But you have to come to Oz to find that out.

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