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Bill,
Thanks for your interesting post.
Actually I collect statistics about accuracy of Lunar observations,
and you can see my collection in the directory
www.math.purdue.edu/~eremenko/Navigation/Accuracy
This directory is made for myself, not for the public, so it is not
well-ordered, but it is
open and anyone can look at it. The best place to start is
http://www.math.purdue.edu/~eremenko/Navigation/Accuracy/accuracy.html

I know two XIX century publications with significant statistics (many
observations).
One is by  a  professional astronomer E. J. White observing from land,
another from a professional navigator and a theorist of navigation,
F. Bolte,
observing from sea checking with a chronometer, and making all precautions
to ensure that chronometer error is determined correctly.

The same directory also contains my analysis of Cook's observations
at Point Venus, Thaiti.

In addition I have a lot of my own records. Most of then with my SNO-T,
6x telescope, and a few with Frank's Tamaya with 7 or 8x prismatic.
The horizontal axis on all graphs is is in tenths of a minute.
And these numbers represent errors in the Lunar DISTANCES, NOT longitudes.
The errors in derived longitude are roughly 30 times larger.

By the way, I find SNO-T 6x superior to all 7x or 8x prizmatics that
I tried.

My vision deteriorates with years (as everybody's vision).
But it is still OK for long distances, I feel no need in eyeglasses for
long distances, and can see Mizar clearly with my naked eyes.
(This was an ancient Arab test for vision of those eligible
for military service:-)

Alex.

P.S. Discussions on Lunars accuracy on this list are and were in the past
sometimes too heated,
so I prefer to avoid them. I think that concrete data speak for themselves.
And everyone can make his own conclusion from these data.

   

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