NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Celestial Navigation in the Movies
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2015 Mar 23, 22:24 +0000
From: Jackson McDonald <NoReply_McDonald@fer3.com>
To: garylapook@pacbell.net
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2015 1:11 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Celestial Navigation in the Movies
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2015 Mar 23, 22:24 +0000
Another movie in which john Wayne uses a sextant is the 1957 movie "Legend of the Lost" with Sophia Loren. He manages to use it in the middle of the desert without an artificial horizon! John Wayne must have been a real hero!
See: these prior posts with video clips from the movie.
and:
gl
From: Jackson McDonald <NoReply_McDonald@fer3.com>
To: garylapook@pacbell.net
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2015 1:11 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Celestial Navigation in the Movies
And there is a John Wayne movie, a Hollywood patriotic film made during World War II, in which he is a naval officer aboard a warship in the Pacific theater. John Wayne looks through the sextant, lowers it, and then reads latitude and longitude right off the instrument. Only John Wayne can do that!
From: NoReply_EdPopko@fer3.com
To: jacksonmcdonald---.com
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 09:06:43 -0700
Subject: [NavList] Celestial Navigation in the Movies
From: NoReply_EdPopko@fer3.com
To: jacksonmcdonald---.com
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 09:06:43 -0700
Subject: [NavList] Celestial Navigation in the Movies
I'm drawn to examples of celestial navigation in movies. Some examples:
Poor - Cpt Nemo in Disney’s 1954 movie 2000 Leagues Under the Sea staring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre, is probably the worst demonstration. A quick glance through the scope, declaration of "We'r here" and tosses the sextant to the first mate.
Curious - All is Lost with Robert Redford, interesting! But is he looking wrong way? The sun is to his back.
Good - Charles Laughton played a duty-obsessed, cruel and arrogant Captain Bligh in the 1935 movie Mutiny on the Bounty. He did a reasonable job for noon sights.
Good - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World a 2003 starring Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, excellent LAN shots while instructing young midshipmen.
Excellent - Das Boot, by far the best demonstration of sextant use is this German WWII submarine movie directed by Wolfgange Petersen in which navigator Kriechbaum takes an sunset star shot with a lovely Plath sextant. All elements are right on! See the attached clip.
Perhaps NavList viewers have seen others.
Ed Popko
Attached File:
(All-is-Lost-Robert-Redford.jpg: Open and save)
Attached File:
Das-Boot-Kriechbaum-Sextant-.mp4 (no preview available)
Poor - Cpt Nemo in Disney’s 1954 movie 2000 Leagues Under the Sea staring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre, is probably the worst demonstration. A quick glance through the scope, declaration of "We'r here" and tosses the sextant to the first mate.
Curious - All is Lost with Robert Redford, interesting! But is he looking wrong way? The sun is to his back.
Good - Charles Laughton played a duty-obsessed, cruel and arrogant Captain Bligh in the 1935 movie Mutiny on the Bounty. He did a reasonable job for noon sights.
Good - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World a 2003 starring Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, excellent LAN shots while instructing young midshipmen.
Excellent - Das Boot, by far the best demonstration of sextant use is this German WWII submarine movie directed by Wolfgange Petersen in which navigator Kriechbaum takes an sunset star shot with a lovely Plath sextant. All elements are right on! See the attached clip.
Perhaps NavList viewers have seen others.
Ed Popko
Attached File:
(All-is-Lost-Robert-Redford.jpg: Open and save)
Attached File:
Das-Boot-Kriechbaum-Sextant-.mp4 (no preview available)
