NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: CelNav without sextant
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2004 Nov 2, 16:23 -0500
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2004 Nov 2, 16:23 -0500
Here is a Cel Nav method even without radio:-) I only assume we have a reasonable watch (available at Wall Mart) and an almanac. And that the Moon is available and moves in the "correct direction" :-) That's all. And a clear sky. You time the sunset using your watch. Then you time an occultation to check your watch against GMT. And then you time the sunrise using the same watch. Potential problems: 1. How precisely you can time a sunrise/sunset? (The problem is refraction. The alt. is "zero", or more precisely, something like 15') 2. To use the occultation you need the approx. altitude of the moon at this moment, (because of the parallax, and less importantly, refraction), so you need your DR place. Alex.