NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Long Term almanac
From: Mike Boersma
Date: 2004 Mar 30, 17:13 -0500
From: Mike Boersma
Date: 2004 Mar 30, 17:13 -0500
Its springtime and I have been checking my navigation kit. I have a long term almanac copied from the 1977 edition of Bowditch which uses a base year of 1972 for its calculations. This is a backup to my navigational computer. I am wondering if there is a newer version of the Bowditch long term almanac out there. (I know that Bowditch is now online and that the online version does not have a long term almanac) What, if any, progressional and nutational error will be evident in using my almanac (base year 1972)? Should I even be concerned about such error? There is about a 2 minute or so discrepancy in sun sights between the Bowditch almanac and my computer; there is about a 1 minute or so discrepancy in star sights. Some of this error is do to me and my use of the tables but I am wondering if a newer almanac would give better results. Mike Boersma