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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The 57 Navigational Stars (and Zuben'ubi)
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2005 Apr 22, 10:40 -0400
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2005 Apr 22, 10:40 -0400
On Apr 21, 2005, at 9:42 PM, Herbert Prinz wrote: > It is true, since Polaris is always nearly on the meridian, a shot of > Polaris can give a very good latitude, if (!) one has local time; but > this feature is inherent in the geometry of the observation, not in the > method of reduction. Therefore, there is no need to make head stands > for > a special method of reduction. Besides, since Sumner's great discovery, > we have come to understand that latitude is just one specially named > line of position. > Part of the attraction of Polaris may have been that it is a relatively easy calculation that a tired mariner could rely on more strongly than other lines of position. Also, the Hs only differs from the colatitude by less than a degree, so there is an inherent check to the calculation. And then there's tradition.... Fred