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In response to D Walden's post, George H wrote:

"But there are other details, that need to be thought about, when such
great precision is being sought."

 

George, you then went on to discuss various small points about the augmentation of the Moon, refraction formulas, and more. But none of this has anything to do specifically with this business of getting a position fix by lunar distances. Instead it's just basic material about clearing lunars that should be well-known to anyone messing around with lunars. Surely, when you were asking for further explanation on this topic, you were not asking how to calculate the Moon's augmentation, were you??

And you wrote:

"It may be that DW's program (perhaps with a bit of further
development) will indeed provide the guidance to Frank's method that I
have been seeking, as an implementation of it, and I wonder whether
Frank will give it his endorsement as such."

 

Dave Walden is exploring an algorithmic wrinkle. He's looking for a way to make the calculation more interesting or possibly shorter in terms of computing effort. But if you want to try it yourself or understand "how" and "why" this process works, George, you need to go back to basics. I'll reiterate, DW originally presented his analysis with two crossed LOPs several WEEKS ago, and that didn't involve any of the calculational "wrinkles" in his latest post. You do not need any fancy new software tools. You do not need to start from scratch on how to clear a lunar distance.

 

Just so there's no misunderstanding, the calculations Dave Walden has posted today are certainly interesting from a mathematical/calculational viewpoint. But it's not going to help you understand the underlying navigational concept.