NavList:

After all this looking for and working on the Astrovan, I thought it was about time I tried some shooting with the Kollsman; I couldn’t get my head between the Smiths and the bathroom bulkhead for the desired azimuths.  Thursday 29^th Dec was a fairly clear day, and I got a meridian passage on the Sun at lunchtime.  I got a Venus shot during twilight, and I got a Vega shot just after dark.  I also decided to try out Frank’s plotting sheet, which I did tonight and found it very useful.  I worked out the Venus using the US Air Almanac and a Vol 3 saved from Vulcan XM603.  I thought I’d give the “Navigator” programme a try and used that to work out the Vega.  I was rather pleased with the Sun and the Venus, but less so with the Vega.  The more I tried on the 29^th and the 30^th the worse I got.  I think it’s because it’s going to take a while to get used to the Kollsman.  It seems to want to hang lop sided, and nothing is falling naturally to hand like on the Smiths.  It doesn’t have handles to hang on to either.  The index knob is right in front of the index counters and the red light path to it is far from ideal; I had to keep using a torch.  Also, I really need my specs for Vega and they’re bifocals.  It was difficult trying to look through the top part and keep looking exactly down the middle of the sextant (a bad workman …..).  Don’t look too closely at the calcs; it’s a while since I’ve done any.  DaveP    

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