NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Lars Bergman
Date: 2026 Oct 8, 14:21 -0700
Josh,
The date is known, 3 October 2026. "Off Halifax" is very roughly 44°N, 63°W. The sun observations before and after the lunar, 1' altitude difference in some 8 minutes of time, indicates that LAN is somewhere between those sights, and the LAN altitude larger than both of them, say Hs = 41°10', making Ho = 41°22'. The lunar distance indicates a time around 16 hours UT, thus we get the sun's declination as S 4°8'. This gives latitude 44°30' N.
For the lunar I've used a sun center apparent altitude of 41°23', giving a true altitude of 41°24.0'. Moon center apparent altitude 19°24', true altitude 20°17.2'. Apparent lunar distance between centers 89°8.2'. This gives a cleared lunar distance of 88°29.9', which gives a UT of 16:09:42 and a watch correction of 16:05:22 (slow).
For the time sight I get Ho = 25°01', latitude 44°38' and declination S 4°11.7'. This gives LAT = 15:12:16 which gives LAT at lunar 12:03:06, and LMT at lunar 11:52:01, giving a longitude of 4:17:41, or 64°25' W, at the time of the lunar. This seems to be on shore. Have I made a mistake somewhere?
Lars






