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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Longitude from moon culmination
From: Sean C
Date: 2023 Dec 23, 19:28 -0800
From: Sean C
Date: 2023 Dec 23, 19:28 -0800
Frank Reed,
Referencing a page from the 1864 Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, you wrote: "But in that same column for magnitudes, there is an entry for the Moon whenever it's listed. This is not a magnitude. Instead it's the age of the Moon in days, tucked in there to avoid adding another column to the table."
This made me smile. When I made my CN spreadsheet I wanted to display the apparent percentage of moon illumination when it was selected, but I didn't want to add a separate field to display it (mostly for asthetic reasons; obviously it wouldn't cost anything to add it). So, I decided to use the magnitude field which I had already implemented. I think it's a case of Occam's razor, but the connection amused me.
Cheers!
Sean C.