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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Backyard winter sextant observatory?
From: Ken Muldrew
Date: 2005 Apr 19, 16:18 -0600
From: Ken Muldrew
Date: 2005 Apr 19, 16:18 -0600
On 19 Apr 2005 at 18:53, Jim Thompson wrote: > Oops, sorry, Ken, forgot the :) right back?No worries, I laughed out loud when I read your reply. I can sympathize as well. We had a pretty warm winter this year but I did manage to shoot one lunar at -30?C. The lunar went OK (but I got a touch of frost-nip on my face from the eyepiece) but while taking a time sight afterward the water in my artificial horizon froze before I could get a single altitude (Aldebaran, I think). I replaced it and took a lunar altitude but again I only got 3 sights in before ice was forming. I would guess the old land navigators had a similar problem with mercury. Ken Muldrew.