NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Mid XIX century Nav
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2005 Nov 28, 23:21 -0500
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2005 Nov 28, 23:21 -0500
Frank Reed wrote: >It's interesting that the Russian chart, published in >German, is already referencing longitudes to Greenwich at this early date. > > Krusenstern explains why. I quote freely from memory from his "Voyage around the world, 1803-06". He says he could have used Petersburg, but there are already so many meridians in use by _astronomers_: Greenwich, Paris, Ferro ("under which, in truth, hides the one of Paris"), Washington; the Spanish have at least two meridians, the Portugese and Germans have their own, etc. For _navigators_, this is a potential source of confusion and dangerous. Two of those meridians are practical for navigators, because the corresponding ephemerides are readily available: Greenwich and Paris. If you look at the political situation in which Krusenstern is operating, it's clear why he has to go for Greenwich. I assume that by doing so he established a quasi standard from which to deviate afterwards nobody had good justification. Herbert Prinz