On a Best Fitting Ellipsoid Obtained from the Astrogeodetic Deflections of Vertical in Japan

Abstract

To test the reliability of the parameters of a best fitting ellipsoid derived from the astrogeodetic deflections of vertical in Japan new computations are carried out changing the conditions, that is, the type of an observation equation and the number of parameters, using new deflection data at 342 stations in Japan. The result shows that the shape and dimension of a best fitting ellipsoid are very sensitive to these conditions. This may indicate that the data area is too small to determine an optimum best fitting ellipsoid from only the astrogeodic deflections of vertical in Japan.