NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Possibly a dumb question,bear with me please
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2014 May 11, 21:17 -0700
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2014 May 11, 21:17 -0700
Hi Alan,
Using a suitable artificial horizon, one could shoot the moon, two shots being say 4 hours apart, the shooter standing in essentially the same location. Would one then obtain a valid "fix" or might the moon's movement, it moves at a rapid, irregular rate, mess things up.
If the position of a given body is predictable to high accuracy, then you're good to go, even if the motion is complex. This predictability was not always as good as desired for the moon, but nowadays the moon, the sun, planets, stars, etc. are all equally good provided the well-known corrections are applied. Some artificial satellites fall under the "good" category too, but they're faint.
Cheers,
Peter
Peter
