Latitude was measured in the past either at noon (the "noon sight") or from Polaris, the north star. Polaris always stays within 1 degree of celestial north pole. If a navigator measures the angle to Polaris and finds it to be 10 degrees from the horizon, then he is on a circle at about North 10 degrees of geographic latitude. Angles are measured from the horizon because locating the point directly overhead, the zenith, is difficult. When haze obscures the horizon, navigators use artificial horizons, which are bubble levels reflected into a sextant.
Latitude can also be determined by the direction in which the stars travel over time. If the stars rise out of the east and travel straight up you are at the equator, but if they drift south you are to the north of the equator. The same is true of the day to day drift of the stars due to the movement of the Earth in orbit around the Sun, each day a star will drift approximately one degree. In either case if the drift can be measured accurately, simple trigonometry will reveal the latitude.
