[chrisseaton]

I can believe that it's true that lines of longitude are not great circles, but I can't picture why in my head. Isn't a great circle formed by extending the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere?

[taejo]

Lines of longitude are great circles. Grandparent must mean latitude: the equator is a line of latitude, and the only one that is a great circle.

[codeduck]

Thanks, I've corrected my previous comment.

[codeduck]

An arc along a line of longitude is a deviation in the latitude scale. Lines of longitude lie on great circles since they converge on the poles, but when you move a degree of longitude you are moving west or east along a line of latitude, and the only line of latitude which is a great circle is the equator.

The reason you use the latitude scale is that lines of latitude are equidistant between one another - it is the same distance between two lines of latitude no matter your longitude, but it is not equidistant between two lines of longitude at different latitudes. So even if your chart spans several hundreds of miles, the latitude scale remains constant across that distance regardless of the distortions of the projection used to render the globe onto the two dimensional chart surface.

[scooble]

> So even if your chart spans several hundreds of miles, the latitude scale remains constant across that distance regardless of the distortions of the projection.

I don't believe that is correct. The latitude scale of a Mercator projection chart will not be constant because the projection introduces some distortion. So 1NM at the top of the chart will not be the same distance as 1NM at the bottom of the chart. For this reason, you should always place your dividers roughly in the area you are going to be sailing in.

As I recall from my Yachtmaster course, the difference is not usually that great for day to day stuff, but for planning long passages on small scale charts it could be a significant error.