Vintage Nautical Compass

Know the Types and Features of Vintage Nautical Compass

You may have seen compasses in the movies. It has been used by the travelers to know the directions for many centuries. Use of compass is not limited to just knowing the direction. In today's time, people are using vintage nautical compass as a luxury item to decorate their homes. No matter how you use this compass, it is a must for you to know its types and features. So, lets learn the same in this write-up.

Types of Vintage nautical compass

Magnetic compass

This compass is one of the most common to be used among the antique compass. So, you can still find it available in the market. A magnetic compass is helpful in interacting with the magnetic field of the earth. This compass can points out the magnetic poles.

Gyro compass

A gyro compass has a wheel in it. This wheel rotates fast and does the job of interacting with the rotation of the earth dynamically. This way the wheel of this compass starts precessing or slows down. It means it is losing energy to friction. At the time it starts slowing down, you can find its axis being parallel with that of earth.

Astrocompass

This compass works through observing the celestial bodies.

Features of Magnetic Compass

As magnetic compass is the most common type of vintage nautical compass, let's take a look some of the characteristics of it.

This compass has compass rose

Compass rose is a diagram. It is helpful in depicting the orientation and direction. You can call it compass star as well. This diagram has thirty-two points. All of it are in the four directions and it also cover inter-cardinal directions of northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest. 16 secondary inter-cardinal directions can also be found in it.

It gives the idea of directions from all angles

Experts have been adding some features to this compass since a long time. Now, you can get a vintage nautical compass that has 360 degree system. 0 degree shows north, 90 degree means you are looking at east, 180 degree means you are heading towards south and 270 degree is to determine the west direction.
 

Effective directions arrow and magnet

You can find it compass's direction arrow pointing to north which is an ideal thing. Also, it has such magnet that interacts with the magnetic field of the earth and aligns with the magnetic poles.

That sums up this write-up about the vintage nautical compass. If you are aware of some other features of compass, then you can share it with us in the comments.