NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Latitude by Lunar Distance
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Nov 12, 00:21 EST
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Nov 12, 00:21 EST
Wolfgang, you wrote:
"I never thought that re-inventing the wheel
in celestial navigation was one of the goals of this group."
Wolfgang, there are many goals for this
group. I would say each member sees it in a slightly different way. But
certainly "discussing interesting concepts in celestial navigation" is one of
the goals of the group whether someone thought of it a hundred years ago or
not. If you personally do not find the concept that you can 'get a
positional fix from measuring lunar distances at known GMT without measuring any
altitudes' interesting, well, that's a personal matter of taste, right? It is
definitely a completely novel concept for anyone I've discussed it with
including quite a number of people with very deep knowledge of celestial
navigation. The fact that someone has thought of and written about something
similar, though apparently a little off the mark, almost a hundred years
ago is hardly surprising. What is surprising, amazing, astounding (!), is that
you chanced upon such an article less than sixty days after I first mentioned it
on the list. It's an entertaining coincidence.
And you wrote:
"But if - as you (no capitals) say - the
criterion is that a concept is novel "to this group", well, the concept of
finding one's position by astronomical observations certainly is a new concept
for a group of 2nd graders; your grade of novelty is obviously dependent on
the group of reference you choose."
You dodged the question there , I think: was
this concept new to you yourself? [capital letters seem to bother you --I
apologize for that-- so I use the phrase "you yourself" for emphasis instead of
"YOU" which I used previously] Did you, Wolfgang, know previous to my posts
on the subject that you could get a positional fix, in longitude and latitude,
by doing two accurate lunar distance observations? Did you know that it was
possible to get a celestial fix without measuring altitudes? Have you seen this
idea outlined anywhere before your recent accidental discovery in an old
journal?? Has anyone else, for that matter?
And you wrote:
"What I want to say by that is this: in
a group like NavList, where in my opinion a couple of discussions were way above
the level of professional discussion in the heyday of celestial navigation
(maybe owing to advanced tools of computation) , I would not expect that someone
tosses in an idea as "new" without at least a small reservation that it might
not be so new after all - which you now admit ("probably ten times, too").
"
I did not claim it as "new". I think that's
the problem here. You're perhaps a little annoyed at an offense that you only
imagined that I committed. And please, don't start in on some semantic debate
about how some words in some post might be taken to imply something if you spin
them just the right way... I did not claim that this method was completely new
to the world of celestial navigation. I do still think that it is new (in
the ordinary sense of the word --that they've never heard of it before) to
the vast majority, let's say more than 99.9%, of the people alive today who are
still proficient in celestial navigation or interested in celestial navigation
in some other way (admittedly, a rapidly dwindling group).
And you wrote:
"Finally about my proficiency at taking and working
out lunars that you made a subject of:"
I've never
"made a subject of" your proficiency.
You
concluded:
"Which is to
say: I am interested in the history of navigation for the cultural and
scientific aspects of this subject. "
Which, as you
should know by now, is also my primary interest. Nonetheless, I also enjoy
messing around with sextants, and I enjoy talking with people about sextants. I
do think that one gets a much better understanding of the historical process
by experimenting with the instruments of the
trade.
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---