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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Sextant design. [was: Another Davis...}
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2003 Mar 3, 21:24 -0500
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2003 Mar 3, 21:24 -0500
George Huxtable wrote: >1. Why does a split-horixon mirror have a piece of plain glass alongside >the mirrored part, for the horizon to be seen through? Why not just chop >that part off? What good does that plain glass do? I've asked that question >before, and ask it again in the hope of getting further answers. George, I have a Davis with the chopped off horizon mirror, which makes it much more difficult to use than my Husun, which has a half-silvered horizon mirror. In the Husun, there is some illusion (?, or perhaps reflection from the front of the mirror) of the two images becoming superimposed, rather than split in half. Also, the edge of the chopped mirror in the Davis divides the field of view, making it more difficult still to match up the two images; they are separated by a thick line. Fred
