NavList:

I just got interested, again, in Celestial Navigation and bought a Celestaire Astra III-B

I did a noon site yesterday using a pan of water for an artificial horizon and need your help and advice in letting me know if I did it correctly. The result obained for Latitude got me within 4' 10" of our actual location.

In performing the Noon Site I "brought the Sun down" until it was completely superimposed on the Sun reflected from the artificial horizon.

Noon in my Longitude was 17:04:59 GMT

Here are the figures;

Hs using articial horizon- 119 deg 30' (I forgot to read the tenths on the vernier!)

I divided the Hs reading by 2 to get;

Hs- 59 deg 45'

Ie- -4'

Refraction- +1

Ho- 60 deg 39'

Declination  -10 deg 57.3"

.....what follows is where I think I either made a mistake or didn't make a mistake....

Sun Semidiameter from the Almanac was 15'.8.....BUT....I wasn't getting the "latitude I wanted" so I divided the SD by 2 and used 7.9'

So....SD used= 7.9'

Final Ho was 41 deg 47' 42"

My actual Latitude was 41 deg 43' 32"

Any ideas on whether I performed the Noon site correctly?

Any other suggestions?

Thank you