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On 26 May 2004 at 15:57, Bruce Stark wrote:

> The only part I can't understand is where you say " . . .

It took me a while to figure out just what Thompson was doing because
he left no calculations whatsoever in his journals (also, his
handwriting can be brutally difficult to read). I think I have a
pretty good handle on it now, though, so if you allow me a day or two
to write it up, I'll post the details along with some journal
excerpts to back up my claims.

Let me quickly clear up the point about division, though. Fidler
takes a run of 10 sights for a particular lunar distance, writing
down the time and distance for each sight. He then adds them up and
shifts the decimal place over to get an average value. Thompson takes
6 or 7 (sometimes 8) sights, adds the values and then divides by 6, 7
(or 8) to get an average. The average distance is then adjusted for
index error and semidiameter(s) and then it is cleared. I didn't mean
to imply that the uncleared distance was the true distance, but let
me leave any further elaboration until I can present a more coherent
argument.

Ken Muldrew

   

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