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Bill,

> Next, I envy your ability to keep things straight when dealing with signs
> that are (to me) all but arbitrary in many cases. Words do seem to get in
> the way.  Is "towards the body" plus and "away from the body" negative?
> Perhaps anchored to how one first learned.

I agree. Dealing with signs is tricky, and frequently causes blunders.
(As recent examples, I mention the discussion of the dip,
which way the temperature gradient near the surface distorts the dip,
and "error in longitude" in Frank's Lunar calculator.
See, even Frank, who always has correct answers to
almost everything, sometimes can have the
sign wrong:-)

It is even worse with azimuth:-)
I remember the horrible rules from the Russian manual
for determining the aimuth (in "quarter count") from
the reduction formulas. It was much easier to
glance at a compas and record in which quarter your
celestial body was during the observation, than to
apply these rules:-)

> Looking forward to your "sea trials" and photos,

1. I have no camera.
2. I am pessimistic about weather.
It seems that unfortunately Kiel has already received
its full portion of sunny days for this summer last week:-(
Perhaps it is not so cloudy in Denmark...

Alex.

   

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