NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David Pike
Date: 2015 Aug 30, 13:50 -0700
Frank Reed wrote “There are a couple of interesting things to notice about the sextant used by the navigator in the middle...“
I couldn’t make the media bit work, so I eventually found the whole episode here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlsDBrSmmd8&index=6&list=PLu7g1OfsO2vcKnzSXQiCHisyUIQcclbxr . The sextant bit occurs at 15m 55s in. I made a discovery. If you stop the video at this time and then quickly double left click the start arrow, you can view the video almost frame by frame. It’s not entirely clear if it’s a British or German vessel. From which navy did the sailors have a dangly bit from the rear of their hat?
I couldn’t see if it was a binocular, but the middle chap was certainly shooting with his left eye. The heath sextant of about that time came with a monocular option. Is it just me, or is the angle of the frame significantly less than 60°. It looks more like 45° to me, but he could be holding it at an angle to the way he’s pointing.
He seems to have learned an extremely cool way of operating the index screw with his left forefinger. He also has an extremely powerful pair of binoculars around his neck, which he’s seen using a few seconds earlier. Apart from that, I give up. Dave