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Antoine,

> Just one example : in one previous version, you could enter Lunar
> distances only to full tenths of arc minutes, while now you can enter
> them to +/- 0'01. This feature can be useful if for example you are
> using
> averaged values

I do not think this is really so useful. Average or not, one cannot
shoot a lunar with a sextant to better accuracy than 0'1.
(This is my opnion based on my own experience and on all accounts of
the Lunars that I read). So there is no harm if you round your averages
to 0'1. But I don't know, perhaps someone wants to shoot Lunars with a
theodolite:-)

What I would consider a useful improvement is adding more stars.
The "Predicted Lunars" of Frank give all or almost all navigational
stars, but his calculator only gives the few "Lunar stars" along the
ecliptic.

One may shoot a Lunar not only to determine time and longitude.
One can also shoot them to determine the sextant error, or
personal error, or just for practice.
And for this, a larger choice of stars is desirable.

> The main picture and the Big one actually is that Frank's
> computer is "battle tested" as he put it once so rightly, and - as
> regards its reliability and accuracy - it is the only one I have found

Yes, I suppose so. At least my study of the accuracy of Cook's
and some XIX century
observations gave meaningful results with Frank's calculator.

Alex.

   

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