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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Ashley Betts
Date: 2019 Sep 3, 20:07 -0700
Hi All,
I'm finding it a bit difficult to find a source of information on how to correctly process logs for multiplication. I'm using the haversine method to reduce an artificial horizon sighting I took in my backyard. My goal it to only use Nories tables for the reduction. I followed the approach documented at the start of the tables (and as mentioned on here) but the aspect I'm struggling with is how the characteristic of the log is adjusted during the additions for the multiplication aspect of the formula (hav(LHA)*cos(Lat)*cos(Dec)). I have looked at a few example reductions on this site but I can not see how the characteristic of the log is adjusted in these examples. I ended up solving using an excel spreadsheet to see the actual values which then lead me to understand what characteric I needed for the resulting log, in this example. I however want to understand how I derive this value without the assistance of spreadsheet or other source going forward.
The example that I used involved:
LHA = 322deg
Lat = 35S
Dec = 8deg 49.3min
The values I got from the table were:
log.hav(LHA) = -1.02528
log.cos(Lat) = -1.91336
log.cos(Dec) = -1.99483
If I add the mantissa's the result is 1.93347
The resulting log I need is -2.93347. I can see no association between the original characteristics (all -1) or the carry over (1) and the resulting -2 that is needed.
Can someone point me in the right direction here with either an explanation of how to go about it or a source that explains this?
Regards,
Ashley