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Thankyou very much for the most interesting story.

Whatever happened to the concept of astro-trackers?  It seems to me, with
today's microchip technology, this device could be much improved and reduced
considerably in size.

At one time or another, we have all discussed the concept of a
self-contained back up system to GPS. It appears to me that an astro-tracker
would be an excellent device to fit this bill. Notwithstanding that it is
another "black box".

It kind of reminds me of a sextant that was described on page 158 of Bruce
Bauer's "The Sextant Handbook". The sextant described is called a "Celnav"
and is pretty much a hand-held, modified version of the astro-tracker. Does
anyone on the list know what happened with regard to its development?

Has GPS pretty much stifled the development of any other method of position
fixing?


----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Allen 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 12:24 AM
Subject: Re: astrocompass still in use


>
> The SR-71 Blackbird also had a very sophisticated star tracker.  Here
> is an extract from "SR-71 Revealed, the Inside Story", by Richard H.
> Graham, pages 65-68.  Richard Graham was an SR-71 pilot for many years.
>   This is his own description of the system.
>

   

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