NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Antoine Couëtte
Date: 2019 Jan 7, 01:00 -0800
RE : https://navlist.net/m2.aspx/ADMIN-private-messages-plus-few-other-matters-FrankReed-jan-2019-g43830
Hello Frank and hello to all,
Happy new year to you.
Just some feedback on your following sentence :
QUOTE " Considering that this is an obsolescent science/art/activity which we all enjoy, this is perhaps not too surprising, but it's still a decline..."
Some extra items worth of consideration here to explain the decline:
- Over the decades of NavList a huge number of items have been covered, and can be adequately retrieved in the archives.
- Certainly one the most significant contributions from NavList has been the re-discovery of Lunars altogether with your on-line Lunar Computer.
- Many other contributions too - e.g. in the field of Sextant Maintenance (with the exceptional expertise from Brad Morris in New Zealand) - new technological developments - e.g. camera lunars by Greg Rudzinski - , and in the field of automatic computation with long term Nautical Almanacs (Peter Hakel, Andrés Ruiz, Paul Hirose, ...) not to mention your long term on-line almanac also Frank.
All factors subject to improved have been covered, e.g. refraction and Dip, with the latter still remaining biggest unknown for the Horizon based observations. The assumed position method (aka Marq Saint Hilaire's method) has been extensively treated and tackled with many many different computing tools (e.g. Cylindrical Bygraves with a "Flat Version" designed by Gary Lapook, or the Haversines tables just lately refurbished under the supervision of Tony, and much more ... )
Celnav is not a field which can be extended to infinity ... And I would say that NavList has covered it all, or at least to 99,5 % as regards "operational" computation methods.
It is then quite understandable then that our publications flow has gone past its maximum rate already.
And it is also true hat more and more frequently newcomers - welcome to you all ! - still unfamiliar with the archive system ask for information which has been extensively treated in the near or remote past.
I will remember just for myself the theoretical and practical study of Lunars which I personally undertook when discovering NavList some 10 years ago.
Also a number of private exchanges with some of you. My current list shows 41 different names ! Since I now and then clear my own e-mail archives, my emails lists still show more than 30 e-mails exchanged both ways with Andres, more than 50 with Greg, more than 60 with Dave and more than 120 with both Paul and our regretted George.
Well done to many, and first to you Frank !
Best Navigational,
Antoine M. "Kermit" Couëtte
