Nautical mile favour of the international nautical mile in 1954. The Imperial nautical mile, often called an Admiralty mile, or more correctly, an Admiralty measured mile, was defined by its relation to the Admiralty knot, 6,080 imperial feet per hour, so 1 imperial nautical mile is about 1,853.181 metres. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the obsolete unit are now converted to 1,853 metres. Despite the existence of precise modern definitions, in the early 21st century the old definitions are still in use. The Royal Yachting Association says in its manual for day skippers: "1 (minute) of Latitude =
Longitude magnetic fields is used as a reference instead. In the case of the Sun, even this criterion fails (because its magnetosphere is very complex and does not really rotate in a steady fashion), and an agreed-upon value for the rotation of its equator is used instead. For "planetographic longitude", west longitudes (i.e., longitudes measured positively to the west) are used when the rotation is prograde, and east longitudes (i.e., longitudes measured positively to the east) when the rotation is retrograde. In simpler terms, imagine a distant, non-orbiting observer viewing a planet as it rotates. Also suppose that this observer is