NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2023 Jan 2, 15:40 -0800
Fred Hebard, you wrote:
"I expect you agree with Falcon Scott that it is unthinkable Scott didn’t bring his own sextant on the trip."
No...
I can "think of" quite a few reasons why Capt. Scott might not bring his own sextant or might not bring a sextant at all. Therefore, the claim is not "unthinkable". :) They had a good theodolite, which was recovered. There's a brief video about the expedition theodolite from Royal Museums Greenwich.
Of course we have that photo of a sextant (and those snazzy boots, too!). So at least one member of the expedition brought a sextant, and it's clearly a relatively antique pillar sextant. Did it belong to Capt. Scott? As yet there's no evidence for that, and he's not the one using the sextant in the photo. I've known people who would call it "unthinkable" to allow anyone else (not the owner) to use a valuable sextant. But that's not evidence either.
Frank Reed
