An interesting analysis is in the paper "Optimum Establishment of Total Station," by Horemuz and Jansson, 2016 (see link below). Its conclusions, from...

@mike-marks Some people, particularly Europeans, call it Free Stationing.

@rj-schneider That's a good question. Spherical astronomy catalogs and ephemerides (for celestial navigation, surveying, observational astronomy) give...

Yes indeed, the declination of Mintaka is South 00º 17" 57", or pretty close to zero. Hence, its amplitude (see my previous comment in this threa...

This relates to the classic maritime navigation concept of "amplitudes." An amplitude is the angle along the horizon between the observer's east or we...

In Massachusetts, plans can be refused. In addition to the regsiters' of deeds formatting and legibility requirements, Massachusetts General Laws Chap...

@holy-cow Looks like there's an "xyzbt.cn" Chinese website, that appears to have something to do with gambling, and perhaps also even less "family-fri...

Interesting to hear. Has anyone tried these Li-Ion rotary hammers for drilling holes around 3/4-inch diameter in igneous rock (e.g. granite)?

@andy-nold I had noticed that the reference objects' distances were given in varas. I suspected that the grid coordinates would be in whatever unit is...

The interesting question is what horizontal datum was behind those grid coordinates. My first thought is that it's the North American Datum of 1913. Y...

@john-putnam The two main differences are the the HP-42S was a traditional RPN calculator with keystroke programming, with no expansion or I/O capabil...

I was going to say "I'll see your HP-41s and HP-48s and raise you an HP-34C that will be 40 years old this coming December." But @flga kind of beat me...

@bill93 A clarification (I'm sure bill93 knows this and was just simplifying): "Y-code" is not a synonym for "P-code". P-code is the publicly known pr...

@holy-cow Yes indeed, steam traction engines. Here's a video of a rather plus-sized model:

@dougie I agree with you, but I think there are two reasons that survey monuments aren't included in the call-before-you-dig laws. First, monuments do...

I think you found one of these. ????

For what it's worth, on 28 April I collected static data with two Trimble 4000SSi receivers (which for years now have been confused about the GPS week...

@andy-nold ????

Regarding spruce, willow, or privet stakes growing into trees: