NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David Pike
Date: 2017 Jan 30, 12:09 -0800
Randall you wrote: If you look closely at the photo you see the flag blown out straight and the navigators coat blown back against his body. It seems likely that this wind would have even disturbed mercury. This is the same photo I saw. If you blow up the photo it looks more like a vintage mirror unit, with a square shape. Vintage mercury units tend to be rectangular in the pictures I have seen. Randy
Yes, everything now suggests that the device in the photograph is a mirror AH. There’s no handy mercury bottle alongside either. The internet is very useful, but this is one of the disadvantages. A rogue phrase like ‘which is a tray of mercury’ can be copied again and again until it becomes near truth.
For a real display of problems associated with celestial reflection from liquids and glass one can’t do better than watch that great actor, and one time William Bligh, Charles Laughton as the somewhat inebriated Hobson in the film ‘Hobson’s Choice’ minutes 47 to 50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tME5fiPKZyo . DaveP
