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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Lunars in early XVII century?
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2012 Dec 27, 18:33 -0500
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2012 Dec 27, 18:33 -0500
I am reading an old book on the history of Arctic exploration, and it mentions that William Baffin "was the first person to apply the method of Lunar distances". Surprised, I read the Wikipedia article on Baffin, and found there the following: "Baffin is remembered for the accuracy of his numerous observations... including the determination of longitude at sea by lunar observations or Lunar distances", and "The accuracy of Baffin's astronomical observations was confirmed in a remarkable manner by Sir Edward Parry, when passing over the same ground, two centuries later (1821). They are speaking of Baffin's travel of 1615, that is long before octants, sextants and almanacs came into being, 70 years before Halley's trip to Saint Helen, and 117 years before Maskelyne was born. Does anyone know how to find any details about these Lunar observations, and/or their confirmation by Parry ? I've never seen them mentioned in the literature before. Until now I thought that Bougainville was the first who made successful Lunar observations at sea (in 1764)... Alex.
