Easy-Cheesy Geodesy: The moon is half a pinky

Geodesy (gee-ODD-iss-ee, "Earth" + "divide") is the precise measurement of the Earth. Because precision is hard, and because I like calling it GEE-oh-dee-zee, and because my friend Bob got such glee from Easy Cheese, for September let's do some Earth measurements that you can approximate at home.

First a well known classic. Your little finger at arm's length is 1° wide. Check yours against the moon, which is half that.

Your fist is 10°, or the width of the open "top" of the Big Dipper. Stack up your fists to do the classicest geodesy ever: the altitude (degrees above the horizon) of the North Star (five dipper-heights "up" from the Big Dipper's tip) equals your latitude (degrees north of the equator). Altitude = latitude, a nice analogram.

And yes I hope dipperheight is a real German word. 5.5°.

Read Yellow More: A Rephotography Classic Revisited now, with no login, at robbcampbell.com. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Easy-Cheesy Geodesy: The moon is half a pinky," RSS Longa, copyright 5 September 2024. Image: Alf van Beem, "NV de Globe cheese tin, pic1.JPG," Wikimedia Commons, 1 November 2014, PD/CC0. Easy Cheese: Wikipedia. 5.5°: Kelly Kizer Whitt, "Sky measurements: Degrees, arcminutes and arcseconds," earthsky.org, 17 July 2023.