NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Green Flash and Longitude
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2006 Jan 4, 09:56 -0800
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2006 Jan 4, 09:56 -0800
Andrew Young then asks: "Oh? Care to cite a reference? Where did this idea come from? Has anyone out there ever heard of this before? Let's hear when some of those 'many occasions' actually occurred! " Good questions. So has anyone on Navigation-L ever heard of this? I haven't. I can't think of any way to make sense of the idea (green flash for longitude??), but that doesn't mean no one ever suggested it, of course. -FER 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. Interesting to say the least. But I don't think so. Not even a little bit. In all my time at sea I can count the times I've witnessed the Green Flash on one hand. Not counting the thumb and index finger. I was always told of this event by more senior personnel. Years went by with out my seeing it. I considered it as something like an initiation right much like crossing the Equator or being sent in search of some "prop wash" until the senior members of the crew deemed a person "qualified". Then one evening while on watch I too saw it. But did I really? After all those years of being told it happens and never witnessing it did I want it to happen so much that my mind made it happen? It wasn't until years later I saw it happen again and knew it to be a true event. Does that have something to do with times of watchstanding? Perhaps I missed a couple of times more while not on watch during the time when the phenomenon happens. Conditions, both atmospheric and the observer's angle, have to be just perfect at the time of setting for this event to even be witnessed. When it does happen it is quickly over. A few seconds of time and it's gone. The Sun's upper limb is already kissing or slightly below the horizon when this event does happen. I just can't imagine how it can be done as stated. There are easier ways to accomplish the same thing.