NavList:

Sean, Haveing been down much the same road I offer the following:

You have a few options:

1. Buy a very exspensive bubble attachment, will cost you as much or more than the sextant.
2. Buy a used aircaft sextant. This is fun, but you will need to learn how to fix thenm ( Bill Morris writes manuals on repairs on most types you can buy these days). This can be fun and rewarding, but you may learn more about repairs of WWII sextants that gain practice in taking sights with a bubble sextant.
3. make, or have made an adapter that mounts an aircraft sextant bubble on your sextant.

I've done all of the above. If what you are looking for is practice with the sextant I'd highy recommend the celestaire bubble. All of the above options cost far more than th celestaire option. To me it's not a big issue that the celestaire is not illumintated. The number of times you take stars in practice is near nill. ( oh, to be sure I do with the above mentioned options, but do you really need to for practice?)

Also, I've found that taking sights with a bubble is far more difficult that using a horizon. I mention this as it is my view that you don't gain a lot of practive with the sexant in its natural form. That is to say, if you shoot great bubble shots in the back yard, don't expect the same results when shooting the horizon from a boat ( or the beach). Both take practice.

Good luck and enjoy your fixes!

Dan
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