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 Van Nest:
40.848434, -73.863746
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.
We found one communities that are also named Van Nest.
There is one other community in New York that is also named Van Nest.
Beyond New York.
Communities Located In New York ...
Westchester County
We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the New York community of Van Nest [Westchester County].
Curious and Interesting Names Near Van Nest ...
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 Van Nest to various places of note, such as the White House.
With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance<2> beginning in Van Nest and extending to:
Bronx, which is the Seat of Bronx County, lies just to the South Southwest.
Albany, which is the State Capital of New York, lies 124 miles [199.6 km]<2> to the north (N). If you could drive a straight line from Van Nest to Albany, with an average speed<3>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take about two hours to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 7 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take 5 days.
The White House (Washington, DC) is 215 miles [346 km] to the southwest (SW). Driving would take nearly four hours, a buggy would take 9 days and walking would take 13 days.
The shortest distance<4> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 5,682 miles [9,144.3 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<5>
The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 6,388 miles [10,280.5 km] and it lies to the east northeast (ENE).<6>
The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,265 miles [6,863.9 km] and it lies to the east northeast (ENE).<7>'
Footnotes ...
<1>
If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.
Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.
Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.
Also keep in mind that Van Nest could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<2>
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- Van Nest) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>
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.
<4>
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 Van Nest 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 Van Nest. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 40.8484, Longitude: -73.8637 In this case, the coordinates for Van Nest have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<5>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 305.844 degrees.
<6>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 301.428 degrees.
<7>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 302.541 degrees.