Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above
website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed
sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above,
we pass this GPS location for Mattapan:
42.276483, -71.092708
Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.
We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers & Almanacs that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as Mattapan to various places of note, such as the White House.
With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance<1> beginning in Mattapan and extending to:
Boston, which is the State Capital of Massachusetts, lies just to the north northeast (NNE).
The White House (Washington, DC) is 389 miles [626 km]<1> to the southwest (SW). If you could drive a straight line from Mattapan to White House, with an average speed<2>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take most of a day to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 23 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take 16 days.
The shortest distance<3> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 5,508 miles [8,864.3 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<4>
The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 6,215 miles [10,002.1 km] and it lies to the east northeast (ENE).<5>
The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,091 miles [6,583.8 km] and it lies to the east northeast (ENE).<6>'
Footnotes ...
<1>
Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Mattapan) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<2>
While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<3>
The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Mattapan to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Mattapan. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.2765, Longitude: -71.0927
<4>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 304.008 degrees.
<5>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 299.593 degrees.
<6>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 300.629 degrees.