Sun shots

Yes. I still use solar observations.

Surveyors still use them occasionally. More importantly is that they were used often in the past, and you will be required to follow in the footsteps of the previous surveyor. If you do not understand how they determined north, all the GPS and robotics in the world won't help you get on the same page as them.

If the only thing you learn in college is leveling and sun shots, however, you picked the wrong school. Most surveying college curricula go into detail about Geodesy, GPS, boundary determination, drafting, applied trigonometry, COGO calculations, etc...

Yes, I use them for a good portion of my work. It is simply another tool in a complete toolbox.

Just curious as to where you are going to school.

Apparently English isn't a strong point of the institution...

I go to Mohawk Valley Comminuty College in New York.

Did Al Chace send you here?

?

Did Al Chace send you here?

No

Here's the course list for AAS degree:
http://www.mvcc.edu/academic-programs/degrees/surveying-technology

and the summary of the Surveying 3 course:
This course introduces engineering field surveys, equipment, and methods. Topics include azimuth determination, control and level nets, surveying with data recording total stations, and position determination with Global Positioning Systems (GPS), including computer exposure for data reductions.

Did Al Chace send you here?

I genuinely wanted to know. A lot of people here in NY tell me it's not used, while yes good to know, not used very much. So I sent out to do some research.

Some surveyors still use them routinely. Some don't. GPS has not made them irrelevant by any stretch. The broader your surveying education the better off you'll be in the long run. Don't fall into the button pushing trap. I see some people skip learning the basics and think that just pushing the right sequence of buttons on a GPS will give them the correct answer every time. It just ain't so. If you understand sun shots and basic geodesy, you'll be ahead of the game when it comes to GPS. Think of it as, stepping stones in your education.

Good luck.

We have learned much more than just basic leveling and sun shots, it was just an exaggeration, sorry.

Thank you.

> Im in college for land surveying, and in my surveying 3 class all were learning is sun shots. I'm just kind of wondering does anyone even do these anymore?

I'm not a pro, like many here, so can not speak from that perspective; I'm a fellow student, currently studying, among other things, "determining Azimuth". In my opinion, it's VERY important to be able to do that. In my case I don't have access to any GPS equipment, and depending on who you work for, you may not either.

Having the skill under your belt to use the sun, moon, planets or stars to determine Azimuth is a plus in my book. Just another tool in the toolkit.

Good luck.

Those of you who use solar shots for azimuth,
-Do you use the hour angle method or altitude method?
-how do you do your timing?
-what accuracy do you achieve?

Here's a link to Jerry Wahl's comparison of methods

I think celestial observations offer a fantastic geodetic primer. Sure you could learn to push buttons on a GNSS controller, but I'd much rather a student learn about the things required to form a good astronomic bearing. This will inevitably lead to better understanding of geodetic coordinates, convergence of meridians (perhaps even mapping angles for projections), deflection from the normal due to gravity (geoid) which relates to astronomic vs. geodetic.

Then when you inverse between two points provided by that slick GNSS controller, you'll know what the difference is between Grid and Geodetic.

Please absorb all of the geodesy you can. It will greatly impact your effective use of GNSS, and celestial observations are a great hands-on application of real world geodesy.

Hour angle. I get time from a consumer grade GPS receiver. I estimate that I get time to less than a second. It's easy enough to tell what effect this has for a given set of sunshots. Run the observation at your observed time, then run the observation with a second added and see the difference. The difference due to error in time changes for different times of day and year so it isn't a constant.

Don't forget GPS time differs from UTC by (I think) 16 seconds.

I often do both for redundancy when first establishing direction on a survey. If I'm taking a solar to add to an existing network of data, then I may just do one or the other. Usually the hour angle if just one, but some times of the year/day I might use the altitude if my watch is not spot on.