NavList:

THE STORY this time:
I am at 33.00 N, 67.00 W. No wind and no current (and no damn motor!). So no running fix worries. I take my first Sun sight when the Sun is in the SW at 17:30:00 UT. Normally, we are told to wait until the Sun has moved by some declaared minimum separation in azimuth, like 30 deg. I don't think there's a law on this, but soimetimes people talk like there's a law.

What happens instead, if I take sights at regular intervals leading up to that NORMAL min sep in azm? When does quantity beat quality?! Here are EIGHT sights with a separation in azm from first to last of 29.3d.

SIGHTS (UT, Ho, Zn):
17:30, 50 09.7, 208.8
17:45, 48 31.2, 214.0
18:00, 46 38.9, 218.8
18:15, 44 34.6, 223.3
18:30, 42 20.2, 227.4
18:45, 39 56.7, 231.2
19:00, 37 25.8, 234.8
19:15, 34 48.3, 238.1

Individually, each sight is "perfect" in the story. No random error here, and coun them as "Ho", already corrected. But if I assume each sight has a standard error of a minute of arc, how does the error in the position change over the run of sights? If I take just the first pair at 17:30 and 17:45, I get a fix that's POOR down the common axis towards azm 211.4 but GOOD perpendicular to that. Same idea for other pairs in sequence. But if I take the first and LAST sights as a pair, I get a good fix in both the common direction and the perpendicular direction. What happens as my afternnon runs along, and I add each new sight to the ones I already have. 

Josh