NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Green Flash and Longitude
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Jan 4, 01:16 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Jan 4, 01:16 EST
On a page of unresolved issues on Andrew Young's collection of web pages on the "green flash", he writes: "In his 'History of Nautical Astronomy', C. H. Cotter makes the tantalizing remark that 'The method of finding longitude from an observation of the Green Flash which occurs in favourable meteorological conditions when the upper limb of the Sun sinks below the visible horizon has been suggested on many occasions during the present century.' " 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. www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
