NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Fw: Lat. and Lon at LAN
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 8, 18:13 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 8, 18:13 EST
George Huxtable wrote:
"I think it's dangerous to encourage novice navigators to presume that they
can deduce a longitude from their LAN, when that just ain't so, with any
accuracy that's worthwhile."
Well, it's no more dangerous than encouraging them to use celestial in the first place! Trust your GPS if you have anything of value (like your life or someone else's) on the line. Do celestial for the challenge and "just in case"...
Although I agree that it's essential to know the limits of accuracy in all techniques of navigation, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The technique of getting a complete position INCLUDING longitude from a well-managed LAN sight is definitely worth knowing since it requires the absolute minimum in almanac data --namely, an analemma. There's a brief article on this in Whitney and Wright's excellent "Learn to Navigate by the tutorial system developed at Harvard" (p.271-272).
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
"I think it's dangerous to encourage novice navigators to presume that they
can deduce a longitude from their LAN, when that just ain't so, with any
accuracy that's worthwhile."
Well, it's no more dangerous than encouraging them to use celestial in the first place! Trust your GPS if you have anything of value (like your life or someone else's) on the line. Do celestial for the challenge and "just in case"...
Although I agree that it's essential to know the limits of accuracy in all techniques of navigation, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The technique of getting a complete position INCLUDING longitude from a well-managed LAN sight is definitely worth knowing since it requires the absolute minimum in almanac data --namely, an analemma. There's a brief article on this in Whitney and Wright's excellent "Learn to Navigate by the tutorial system developed at Harvard" (p.271-272).
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
