NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David Pike
Date: 2015 Feb 1, 13:06 -0800
You can always make your own. Around 1982, I had to make something as my final testpiece for my Post Graduate Certificate in Education as a tyro Craft, Design, and Technology teacher. I'd always regretted allowing my mother to give my father's marine sextant away, and even the plastic ones seemed very expensive, so I decided to make my own out of plywood. The trick is to make it big, as people like Tycho Brahe found. Then cutting the scale is easy. I seem to remember the technician in the workshop showing me how to use a dividing engine as a lathe attachement, but I'd never be able to remember how to use it now. I recall shooting stars on a bowl of water on a still night and being surprised to find the Hs was double what I'd expected. Taking instant values compared to always using an averager were also a pleasant surprise. I've got the shots I took somewhere around. As I recall it was accurate to 2 or3nm. My problem is no natural horizon. As soon as I get my new artificial horizon working, I'll have to start playing with the plywood again. Dave
