NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Curious Onlookers was Sextant calibration.
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2007 Apr 20, 20:13 -0500
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From: Robert Eno
Date: 2007 Apr 20, 20:13 -0500
Frank
wrote:
To me, the biggest problem with any
of these outdoors methods of sextant calibration is that you have to deal with
the inevitable questions... "whatsat thing do? are ya lookin at the Moon?" So I
answer, "well, no, I'm just calibrating it so that it measures
angles accurately." And when I see that look on their faces that says 'this
guy must be crazy', I throw in "...so that I can sell it on ebay." And then
their eyes brighten and it all makes sense to them --they walk away happy in the
knowledge that they are seeing digital commerce in the making.
Robert comments:
So very true. I generally try to find a quiet, secluded spot from which to
practice. I sometimes feel like I am conducting some kind of shameful or illegal
operation, such is my desire to not be seen practicing my craft. One day last
summer, I was shooting the sun off of my deck, thinking I was all alone. A
good buddy of mine, who is a plumber and who was going to do some work for me,
drove up to my house on this afternoon, opened his truck window and shouted:
"Hey, Admiral Nelson: when your finished figuring out where you are, come talk
to me about your pipes". Well at least he knows what a sextant is
for!
A late great friend of mine, a retired US Army officer, used to practice
with his sextant out on his front lawn using his artificial horizon. Although he
lived in a quiet street in rural Maryland, he inevitably attracted curious
onlookers from his immediate area. One day, a neighbour wandered over and asked
him about the strange contraption he was holding. "Well", my friend said,
"this is a sextant and it is used to determine one's position on the face
of the earth. I am trying to figure out how much my house has moved due to
continental drift". The fellow wandered away with a perplexed look and no
doubt believed that my friend was a daft, though harmless old man.
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