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Ah, you have brought up a topic which is very near and dear to my heart.
The Astrocompass. I bought one in 1983 from a fellow who had a warehouse
full of these items, as well as MK IX RAE Bubble Sextants.

I have always considered the astrocompass to be not only a utilitarian
device but also a work of artistic beauty.

The astrocompass is still in use in Arctic Canada; in fact according to
one of my contacts in the airline industry, its use -- as a backup system
for maintaining a heading -- in small aircraft such as twin otters, is
still mandatory.

So you can see that it is still in use for it's originally intended
purpose.

I still have a set of the original instructions that came with the unit. I
used to have a paper entitled "Using the Astro Compass as a Transit" but
it has long since dissapeared.

>The astrocompass lives on. A major utility company in California
>allows engineers and architects to borrow one to evaluate solar access
>to a building site. Here is their online manual:
>
>http://www.pge.com/003_save_energy/003c_edu_train/pec/toolbox/tll/app_note
s/astro_comp.shtml

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