NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Latitude by Spica
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 12, 19:14 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 12, 19:14 EST
K Kelly wrote:
"I agree something seems amiss with this sight. The ship was located off the
north east coast of New Guinea just north of the island of Mussau."
I didn't notice when I copied it that the entry for that date didn't include WEST on the longitude. They're in mid-Pacific, not near New Guinea.
You realize, I hope, that you can read these log entries on your own and study the original scans. Here's a direct link to the page in question:
http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/initiative/PageText.cfm?PageNum=16&bibid=31976
There's a little run of lunars around this date, too. They were in a celestial mood that week!
By the way, I corrected in the text version that I posted what I think is very obviously a misreading of the original scan. The transcript has "159" as the degrees for the longitude by lunar. If you look at the scan of the logbook, the author makes 2's with a curly flourish at the top. The person converting the information to text read one of these as a 9.
So now take a look at that time for the Spica sight. What IS that squiggle in the original scan of the log page?? Does it say "8 AM" or "1AM" or something else?? Could they shoot Spica at meridian passage in the middle of the night? Maybe. Was the Moon out (I haven't checked)?
Also, remember that logs were often kept by junior officers, and "typos" are not uncommon. I saw the latitude in one log jump by ten degrees for a couple of days and then fall back ten degrees. This was on a steady southbound voyage with fair weather. The author of the log simply mis-wrote the latitude for a few days. This is the sort of error that can happen in the middle of the ocean on a long voyage. Lucky for them they realized it before heading for the coast!
This particular logbook of the Stonington is a fascinating one for several reasons. The "little whaling voyage" takes an interesting turn off the coast of California in October of 1846. Think about it... Who owned California that year?
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
"I agree something seems amiss with this sight. The ship was located off the
north east coast of New Guinea just north of the island of Mussau."
I didn't notice when I copied it that the entry for that date didn't include WEST on the longitude. They're in mid-Pacific, not near New Guinea.
You realize, I hope, that you can read these log entries on your own and study the original scans. Here's a direct link to the page in question:
http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/initiative/PageText.cfm?PageNum=16&bibid=31976
There's a little run of lunars around this date, too. They were in a celestial mood that week!
By the way, I corrected in the text version that I posted what I think is very obviously a misreading of the original scan. The transcript has "159" as the degrees for the longitude by lunar. If you look at the scan of the logbook, the author makes 2's with a curly flourish at the top. The person converting the information to text read one of these as a 9.
So now take a look at that time for the Spica sight. What IS that squiggle in the original scan of the log page?? Does it say "8 AM" or "1AM" or something else?? Could they shoot Spica at meridian passage in the middle of the night? Maybe. Was the Moon out (I haven't checked)?
Also, remember that logs were often kept by junior officers, and "typos" are not uncommon. I saw the latitude in one log jump by ten degrees for a couple of days and then fall back ten degrees. This was on a steady southbound voyage with fair weather. The author of the log simply mis-wrote the latitude for a few days. This is the sort of error that can happen in the middle of the ocean on a long voyage. Lucky for them they realized it before heading for the coast!
This particular logbook of the Stonington is a fascinating one for several reasons. The "little whaling voyage" takes an interesting turn off the coast of California in October of 1846. Think about it... Who owned California that year?
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
