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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Can anyone tell me why my sextant has two sunshades?
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Mar 14, 01:51 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Mar 14, 01:51 EST
Greg, you asked: "Can anyone tell me why my sextant has two sunshades? I have a MAC sextant with four shades: 1 'redish' , 1 'greenish' , and 2 that are so dark as to only be for the sun - why two?" Bad design. I've got a MAC sextant, too. It's a nice "Tamaya-alike". Presumably the design was licensed from Tamaya with details worked out by the manufacturer. There are several other odd brands of sextants that in this category. I like my MAC sextant a lot, but there are a number of little oddities. One dark shade is so dark that I can only believe it is intended for use in the unlikely event that the Sun goes supernova. It serves no real purpose. I use the others in combination to get a dark enough level for Sun sights with this sextant, and the results are excellent. By the way, the other people who replied on this are certainly not wrong, but until you've seen an ultra-dark shade, like on that MAC sextant, it's hard to imagine. You asked about a manual. I highly doubt that the MAC sextant shipped with one. Many sextants don't have official manuals. Also, I agree with everyone else that you should try a liquid mirror. -FER 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
