NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Perfect Sextant
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2006 Jun 1, 21:45 -0400
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2006 Jun 1, 21:45 -0400
In answer to your question about bubble attachments, I believe a C.Plath attachment will fit your Japanese sextant (Tamaya?). My own personal opinion -- based on experience -- is that whatever bubble attachment you can lay your hands on, it should have a provision for adjusting the size of the bubble. As I alluded to before, C.Plath made the best marine sextant bubble attachments, bar none. There are still quite a few kicking around out there but they are becoming harder and harder to find. I recall Ken Gebhart from Celestaire came into a considerable number of them a few years back and I think they sold out fairly quickly. In terms of accuracy, at sea, a bubble attachment is near useless unless the water is as flat as piss on a plate. The general movement of a vessel at sea -- even a gentle movement -- is such that the bubble scoots all over the field of view like a blue-arsed fly at a road kill. The best I have ever managed (at sea) on a calm day was about 3 - 5 miles. On land, and with a lot of practice, you can nail your position down to within tenths of a nautical mile, but normally you will be in the range of 1 - 3 nautical miles. The RAE MK IXA Aircraft bubble sextant is even more accurate on land and much easier to use. It has probably the best bubble system ever devised. Your comment on limiting factors in sextant accuracy made me smile. My sextant has the same problem! Robert ----- Original Message ----- From: "cfi@licfi.com"To: Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 1:43 PM Subject: Re: The Perfect Sextant >I have a all metal Japanese sextant from e-bay that the owner said got him > across the pacific several times(made by a: "Measure All Company" ?), its > no C.Plath but it reads out to 10" of arc and as far as I can tell I am > the > limiting factor when it comes to sights. I would really like to find a > bubble attachment for it; (1)does anyone have any suggestions? & (2)what > is > the best accuracy you can expect with a bubble, is it worth the bother? > > Original Message: