NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2013 Jun 18, 10:29 -0700
Today's featured article on (English-language) Wikipedia is the article on "midshipman" and it includes an image of an engraving showing a young midshipman holding a quadrant (octant). The instrument is not mentioned, but I thought it would be of interest since it's a rare day to find a traditional navigational instrument in a spot that will be seen by many millions of people.
During the past weekend's navigation class at Mystic Seaport, one participant asked me why the heck they put the handle on the right on a sextant. I explained about the "organic" development of this technology and also pointed out that the original instruments didn't have handles at all. We can see a hint of that in this engraving. The midshipman is holding his quadrant by the index mirror! ...Perhaps a bit of artistic license. :) Actually, if you look closely it's really a rather poor rendering of the instrument. How many flaws can you find?
-FER
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