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During the weekend of June 16-18, 2006,  Friday through Sunday, the Mystic
Seaport Planetarium in Mystic, Connecticut  will be hosting a "Celestial
Navigation Celebration" devoted to preserving the  art and practice of celestial
navigation. Planetarium Director and long-time  celestial instructor, Don
Treworgy, will conduct a tour of part of the museum's  navigational instrument
collection. Many of these historical instruments have  never been publicly displayed.
Myself, I will be conducting two presentations on  navigation by "lunar
distances", one devoted to historical aspects and basic  concepts, the other
focused on the mathematical and technical aspects. Anyone  interested will have an
opportunity to take a lunar distance observation and  find the longitude just
the way it was done during the late 18th and early 19th  centuries (weather
permitting, of course). Don Treworgy and other planetarium  staff will also do at
least one planetarium program demonstrating the use of the  planetarium
projector and dome in teaching celestial navigation. We also intend  to arrange a
presentation based on the G.W. Blunt-White Library's extensive  collection of
original logbooks, navigation manuals, and almanacs.

Join  us in Mystic for this weekend of events. Whether you're just interested
in the  subject of celestial navigation for the fun and challenge of a nearly
lost art,  or you're a professional celestial navigator with decades of
experience at sea,  we would like to see you there. We're also putting out a "Call
for  Presentations". Is there a celestial navigation topic that you would like
to  present to a wider audience? Perhaps you have an unusual method for
getting a  line of position at sunrise or sunset. Maybe you're a sextant merchant
and you  would like to tell us about your experiences on the business side of
celestial  navigation. If you have an idea for a presentation, please try to
let us know by  February 28, 2006 so that we can finalize our schedule. If you
definitely plan  to attend or you're thinking about attending, it will be very
useful to us to  have a head count, so please drop me an e-mail at
FrankReed@HistoricalAtlas.com.

Events of the "Celestial Navigation  Celebration" weekend are free of charge
and open to all. If you plan to visit  other exhibits at Mystic Seaport while
you're here (and you certainly should!),  then you would need to purchase
regular museum admission or a museum membership.  Details here:
www.mysticseaport.org. Some events during the weekend are  sponsored by the Susan P. Howell
Memorial Fund.

On a practical note, I  should add that Mystic, Connecticut is easily
accessible. It's a straight,  forty-minute drive from T.F. Green Airport south of
Providence, Rhode Island  which is served by frequent inexpensive flights on
Southwest and other major  airlines, and it's just a mile from Exit 90 on I-95.
Mystic is on the main  Amtrak train line between Boston and New York City. There
are numerous motels,  hotels, B&Bs, and other accomodations close to Mystic
Seaport.

Frank  Reed
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
41.3N 71.9W or 41.9N  87.7W

-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N  72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars

   

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