NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Moon altitude problems.
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2006 Aug 20, 16:06 -0500
Frank wrote:
--clipped--
If the line is tilted so that the
> upper cusp is to the right of the lower cusp (and the Sun is to the
> right), then the Lower Limb should be used.
Robert asks:
Frank, perhaps I am misinterpreting your description and/or visualizing this
incorrectly, but it seems to me that under such conditions, would it not be
the upper limb that should be used?
Keeping along the same lines as my original posting, minus the coded
explicatives in deference to George Huxtable's sensibilities, I posed this
question to a good friend of mine, a Master Mariner with three decades of
seagoing experience (prior to GPS) and who taught celestial navigation at
the Nautical Institute in Nova Scotia for many years after he left his
seagoing service.
My friend's opinion of moon shots contains even more colourful and
descriptive explicatives than those which I offered in my original post; as
can be expected from a hard-boiled merchant mariner. Essentially though, he
told me that moon shots tend to be inaccurate and unreliable and that in his
career, he avoided them if he could. The moon, my friend says, is too fast
and too close. There are too many variables with the moon.
I can't parry and thrust with the mathematical geniuses on this list,
however, at the end of the day, when an experienced Master Mariner contends
that moon shots are unreliable, I can only conclude that there must be some
factual basis to this view; a view which may be more widespread than we
might believe.
As for myself, as I indicated in my first posting, I can only go on my own
personal experience and that of others.
It reminds me of a story told to me many years ago about a biologist who was
studying polar bears. The fellow was startled to discover that one
particular bear was exhibiting a behaviour pattern which all the
authoritative texts said should not occur. When he expressed his dismay, his
companion, an experienced Eskimo hunter replied: "I think the bear didn't
read that book".
Robert
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
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From: Robert Eno
Date: 2006 Aug 20, 16:06 -0500
Frank wrote:
--clipped--
If the line is tilted so that the
> upper cusp is to the right of the lower cusp (and the Sun is to the
> right), then the Lower Limb should be used.
Robert asks:
Frank, perhaps I am misinterpreting your description and/or visualizing this
incorrectly, but it seems to me that under such conditions, would it not be
the upper limb that should be used?
Keeping along the same lines as my original posting, minus the coded
explicatives in deference to George Huxtable's sensibilities, I posed this
question to a good friend of mine, a Master Mariner with three decades of
seagoing experience (prior to GPS) and who taught celestial navigation at
the Nautical Institute in Nova Scotia for many years after he left his
seagoing service.
My friend's opinion of moon shots contains even more colourful and
descriptive explicatives than those which I offered in my original post; as
can be expected from a hard-boiled merchant mariner. Essentially though, he
told me that moon shots tend to be inaccurate and unreliable and that in his
career, he avoided them if he could. The moon, my friend says, is too fast
and too close. There are too many variables with the moon.
I can't parry and thrust with the mathematical geniuses on this list,
however, at the end of the day, when an experienced Master Mariner contends
that moon shots are unreliable, I can only conclude that there must be some
factual basis to this view; a view which may be more widespread than we
might believe.
As for myself, as I indicated in my first posting, I can only go on my own
personal experience and that of others.
It reminds me of a story told to me many years ago about a biologist who was
studying polar bears. The fellow was startled to discover that one
particular bear was exhibiting a behaviour pattern which all the
authoritative texts said should not occur. When he expressed his dismay, his
companion, an experienced Eskimo hunter replied: "I think the bear didn't
read that book".
Robert
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
