NavList:

My favorite reply to the curious is to say that this is a sextant which is nothing more than a fancy protractor.

I once made the mistake of observing LAN in front of a beach tavern called the Rudder Room (both bikers and sailors hang there). A wobbly gentleman come storming out of the Rudder Room full of questions and wanted to give an observation a try. I had my beater sextant with me so I let him have a go. To my surprise he got a good look at the Sun on the horizon. He went back to his bar stool as proud as a peacock ;-)

Greg Rudzinski

Re: Funny Questions while Practicing CN (Was "The Future of CN...")
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2013 Sep 3, 10:18 -0700
"It's an instrument for measuring the position of the stars. From that, you can find your location on the earth. It was used for navigating ships at sea until the invention of GPS."

Maybe a bit longer than the shortest possible sentence, but pretty thorough IMHO.

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