NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Noon sun fix example
From: Hewitt Schlereth
Date: 2009 Sep 22, 12:38 -0400
From: Hewitt Schlereth
Date: 2009 Sep 22, 12:38 -0400
Hi, Jeremy - Doing celestial from a ship is obviously a lot different from doing it aboard a sailboat. A fair number of small-boat sailors - me for one - would consider a 4' difference between a GPS position and a celestial fix pretty much OK - 4' being just a little beyond the horizon at an eye height of 9 feet. Anyway, the reason for the difference is that I have an aversion to altering other people's data. So, I took your first and last sextant shots as equal altitudes, even though they weren't quite. I did the same thing in the 'Noon Sight Shootout' a few months ago. Just took George's data as presented. Attached is a work sheet where your last Hs is backed up to the time when it would have equalled your first Hs. That done, my longitude now comes out 0.2' West of yours. Thanks again for the real-world data. -Hewitt On 9/21/09, Anabasis75@aol.comwrote: > > Hi Hewitt, > > Thanks for taking the time to do this via the table method. I have to say > that I am pretty disappointed with the longitude determination from this > method. 4.3' is a pretty big error in my book and would send me looking for > math or sight errors if it happened out here. I find it curious why there > is such a difference between this method and the ones Peter and I used to > get much more accurate fixes. > > Being unfamiliar with the book that you used, I am wondering if there is > some explanation as to why the results differ so greatly. > > Jeremy > > In a message dated 9/19/2009 10:06:35 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > hhew36@gmail.com writes: > Hi Jeremy - > > Here's a paper-and-paper method of finding Longitude at Noon based on > the motion correction table published in Latitude and Longitude by the > Noon Sight. > > My work sheet is the .doc attachment. > The table scan is the .jpg attachment. > > As you'll see, this method differs from your 1300 GPS by .4' in Lat > and 4.3' in Lon. > > Thanks for providing data from actual combat conditions. :-) > > Hewitt > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NavList message boards: www.fer3.com/arc Or post by email to: NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---