NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Ronald van Riet
Date: 2011 Jan 18, 08:41 -0800
A slide rule (well not quite, but close enough to be called a slide rule) exists that was used to determine the azimuth of the pole star: the P.A.44 (http://www.rechenschieber.org/pa44.html web page in German).
Does anyone know of a reason why the azimuth of the polar star is important enough to develop a dedicated slide rule for it?
Also, they claim that with a half degree of latitude, a full degree of longitude and about five minutes time accuracy, the azimuth could be determined with a 1 minute of arc precision. Could that be a valid claim? It seems a bit too precise with the imprecise inputs...
thanks
Ronald
----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------