NavList:

Douglas, in the thread about index correction, you wrote:
"Kew Observatory was where chronometers were tested and repaired for the admiralty too. I looked-up the following (below) for interest's sake here" [etc]

That's apparently copied and pasted from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Observatory

When you post something from Wikipedia (or one of its clones), it's probably worth saying that this is the source since Wikipedia articles are written by quite ordinary people, and not infrequently they contain erroneous information.

This article on Kew Observatory does not appear to be erroneous. Rather, it is boiler-plate. To see what I mean, go to Wikipedia and read the articles on "Observatory of Geneva" and "Besancon Observatory" and "Neuchatel Observatory". What you will discover is that nearly every word in the body of the article supposedly about Kew Observatory is included in each of those other articles. In fact, the only part that is unique to the K.O. article is a single introductory sentence: "Kew Observatory was an astronomical and terrestrial magnetic observatory located in Kew, London, England." That's it! This does not imply that the other information is incorrect, but it is merely copied and pasted into this article from a general description. And now it's been copied and pasted into the NavList archives, so on it goes... :-)

One nice thing about Wikipedia articles is that they often include good links to references and resources online. I think of Wikipedia articles as "a good place to start". For example, the Wikipedia article on "AIS" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System) took me to that fun web site hd-sf.com with AIS identification of traffic visible on a web cam of SF Bay. In this Kew Observatory article, at the end, there's a nice link to an item on google books with some interesting historical information.

-FER

----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------