What did sailors back then use to find longitude?

Question

Like back when ferdinand Magellan was alive

PLEASE answer!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE answer!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

a sextant was used during daylight ( dusk to dawn)....in Magellan's time the only thing that could be accurately measured was latitude......the distance North or South of the Equator based on the height of Polaris in the northern Hemisphere or less precisely, the height of the Southern Cross in the Southern hemisphere.

Accurate longitude.....how far east/west you were... didn't happen till the 1740's and Jame Harrison's chronometer.

One reason Magellan and his crews almost died crossing the Pacific was they grossly underestimated how far it was across and to the Spice Islands. Exploration for the next 200 years was filled with stories of lands lost and found because no one had an accurate means of finding east/west.

Answer 2

Sailors used an instrument called a "sextant" to navigate by day; by night they used the positions of the stars.