NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Chasing Shackleton
From: Stan K
Date: 2014 Jan 16, 17:00 -0500
From: Stan K
Date: 2014 Jan 16, 17:00 -0500
Alan,
Reading the scale and trying to determine which of 30 ltiny, low-contrast marks lines up with a similar mark on the other scale is very difficult, even with the magnifier. And in poor lighting, no way. There is a light diffuser, so I guess back in the day they would use a candle or other small source of light. It is not your eyes. There is just no comparison with a modern micrometer drum sextant like the Astra IIIB. (I also have one of those, soon to get a second, two Davis Mark 15s, and the Celestaire cardboard kit, with which I actually got a sun sight from a rocking boat within 7 nm from the GPS (might have been LORAN) reading.)
I suspect I have heard things said on prime time TV that were a lot worse than what got bleeped in Chasing Shackleton.
Stan
Reading the scale and trying to determine which of 30 ltiny, low-contrast marks lines up with a similar mark on the other scale is very difficult, even with the magnifier. And in poor lighting, no way. There is a light diffuser, so I guess back in the day they would use a candle or other small source of light. It is not your eyes. There is just no comparison with a modern micrometer drum sextant like the Astra IIIB. (I also have one of those, soon to get a second, two Davis Mark 15s, and the Celestaire cardboard kit, with which I actually got a sun sight from a rocking boat within 7 nm from the GPS (might have been LORAN) reading.)
I suspect I have heard things said on prime time TV that were a lot worse than what got bleeped in Chasing Shackleton.
Stan
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan S <alan202@verizon.net>
To: slk1000 <slk1000@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Jan 16, 2014 4:27 pm
Subject: [NavList] Re: Chasing Shackleton
From: Alan S <alan202@verizon.net>
To: slk1000 <slk1000@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Jan 16, 2014 4:27 pm
Subject: [NavList] Re: Chasing Shackleton
Stan:
An old friend of mine was a licensed master, steam & diesel, all oceans, all tonnage as I recall. He had an old English sextant, vernier type that he once tried to teach me to use. Either my eyes were much poorer than his or I was simply to thick to grasp it's operation. I have no problem reading my Astra 111B.
I saw the broadcast last night, complete with several instances of comment being "bleeped out", I guess that someone said hell or dam, possibly even "oh shit". Strikes me that this business of bleeping things out is just plain stupid, but then one has to contend with those "monitors" and an FCC that sometimes appears not to know the difference between top and bottom. Sad, oh so sad.
Alan
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