What is Compass ?

When the Chinese started using a compass for navigation instead for divination, the typical navigational compass was in the form of a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water.

South-South-West  SSW

West-South-West   WSW

West-North-West   WNW

North-North-West  NNW

The first compass that could be used on a boat and was without liquid was a dry compass. It consisted of the standard magnetic compass that was placed in the three ring gimbal that held compass horizontal position.

A Qibla compass or qiblah compass is a type of compass used by Muslims to indicate the direction of Mekka to which they face performing ritual prayers.

hen Bob Dylan sang "like a rolling stone... with no direction home," he obviously wasn't carrying his compass.

Magnetic North Pole is actually magnetic south pole and vice versa.

Armed with a simple bit of magnetized metal, you can almost always find your "direction home" in an instant.

People have been navigating with magnetic compasses for the best part of 900 years, so there must be something in it!

Modern liquid compasses use lamp oil, mineral oil, white spirits, purified kerosene, or ethyl alcohol as a dampening fluid.

What are compasses and how do they work?

And what about the compasses people use in ships and airplanes where Earth's magnetism isn't always a reliable method of navigation? Let's take a closer look!

On the maps, rose-of-winds is usually printed in colors that will be visible in the conditions of lesser visibility. Eight principle points of the compass are usually shown on the compass rose in black.

The simplest compass is a magnetized metal needle mounted in such a way that it can spin freely.

(You can make one yourself by magnetizing an ordinary needle, placing it carefully on a slice of cork, and letting the cork float in a tray of water.

. Half-winds are generally colored in blue or green while the quarter-wind points are colored red.

Left to its own devices, the needle turns until one end points north and the other south.

A compass is a device used to determine direction on the surface of the earth. The most familiar type of compass is the magnetic compass, which relies on the fact that a magnetic object tends to align itself with Earth's magnetic field.

You can usually figure out which end is which from the position of the Sun in the sky, remembering that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Other types of compasses determine direction by using the position of the Sun or a star, or by relying on the fact that a rapidly spinning object (a gyroscope) tends to resist being turned away from the direction in which its axis is pointing.

So if you're looking down on the floating needle at about noon, with the eye on the left and the point on the right, and the Sun in front of you, you know the point is indicating north.

The basic parts of a magnetic compass are the needle (a thin piece of magnetic metal), the dial (a circular card printed with directions), and the housing (which holds the other parts in place). Inexpensive compasses, generally used as toys, may have no other parts. Compasses intended for more serious purposes usually have other parts to make them more useful.

Compasses you buy are a bit more sophisticated than floating needles but work essentially the same way.

These other parts may include lids, covers, or cases to protect the compass; sights making use of lenses, prisms, or mirrors to enable the user to determine the direction of an object in the distance; and a transparent baseplate marked with a scale of inches or millimeters so that the compass can be used directly on a map.

They have a lightweight, magnetized pointer mounted on a very low-friction pivot that is sealed inside a small plastic cylinder filled with liquid.

The pointer is built into a rectangle of plastic called a compass card, printed with the cardinal points of the compass (north, south, east, and west), and the intercardinal points (north-east, north-west, south-east, south-west).