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Re: New Use For Sextant
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2002 Jun 11, 23:46 -0400
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2002 Jun 11, 23:46 -0400
Dan,
You are a man after my own thinking.
I am new to this forum so this is my first posting.
I have used my sextant to observe numerous solar
eclipses. It is the best thing for this purpose. I have never tried to take a
photo though. Next time around. You must have a steady hand.
Here's another use for a sextant: I used one of my
aircraft bubble sextants several years ago to take a round of shots of
comet Hale-Bopp. I got the emphermis data from the astronomy department of a
Canadian university. Didn't do too badly at that. Took four shots and
averaged them out. I was able to fix my position to within 2 nautical
miles.
But if you really want a good excuse to use your
sextant, I suggest that you take up lunars. They are a hoot, and you will get
some serious sextant practice under your belt in the process. In 1999, a fellow
by the name of Bruce Stark published a simplified set of tables for clearing the
lunar distance. Mr. Stark spent over 20 years developing them. I in turn, spent
a few months in mastering them by constantly practicing out on my deck,
late into the evenings. Then came the sight reduction...
If you like sextants, you'll love lunars. I
believe that these tables are available from Celestaire in Wichita, Kansas. I
highly recommend them.
cheers,
Robert
----- Original Message -----From: Dan AllenSent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 11:10 PMSubject: New Use For SextantLast night we had a partial solar eclipse here in the Seattle Washington area. I wanted to look at the eclipse so I used my Tamaya Jupiter sextant with a 7X scope and a dark gray filter and a green filter. Worked great! I had all of my family look through the sextant to view the eclipse. I then had the idea to put my Kodak digital camera up to the sextant eyepiece and I took a couple of decent photos!Any excuse to use my sextants... ;-)Dan
