NavList:

NavList and Mystic Seaport Museum will be hosting our fourth navigation conference during the first weekend of November this fall. The theme of the conference is broad: "Celestial Navigation: History and Future". We will be meeting primarily at the Treworgy Planetarium at Mystic Seaport with some events at other venues at the museum. There will be a $50 registration fee for the conference until September 22, 2017 at which time, when the Sun's declination becomes negative, the registration fee will increase to $100. The conference will begin on Friday, November 3, 2017 at 2:00pm and will continue until 4:00pm on Sunday, November 5, with a keynote presentation on Friday afternoon or early evening. There will also be a group dinner on Saturday evening. Presentations on a variety of navigation and navigation-related topics will occur during the day on Saturday and Sunday with some time also available in the schedule to explore Mystic Seaport's exhibits and historic vessels. 

Professor Tamara Plakins Thornton has agreed to be our keynote speaker on Friday evening. She will discuss the life of Nathaniel Bowditch based on her excellent recently-published biography Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life.

I will be issuing a formal "CFP", Call for Papers/Presentations shortly, so if you have some navigational topic you are itching to discuss before a crowd, start putting together a description. I will be handling all the organization and review all proposals (please do not contact Mystic Seaport with presentation proposals). Mystic Seaport will be able to accept registrations for the conference beginning in about a week. I'll let you know when it's safe to contact them.

Please note that this is not a "NavList meeting". This is a conference on celestial navigation, history and future, theory and practice, of which the NavList community forms a significant component. Its a meeting open to navigation professionals, practitioners and enthusiasts, as well as historians of science and mathematics, and anyone interested in the topic of celestial navigation. Spread the word...

As a reminder to any of you considering flying to New England for this conference, Mystic Seaport is located in Mystic, Connecticut, easily accessible by train, highway, and air. Amtrak's northeast corridor train service and Interstate 95 are within walking distance. Nearby T.F. Green airport south of Providence, Rhode Island is about 45 minutes away and is well-served by major airlines including Southwest. Flying internationally, Logan airport in Boston, Massachusetts is a good option about 1 hour 45 minutes from Mystic by car (or 3 hours by train).

Frank Reed
ReedNavigation.com
Conanicut Island USA