NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Rommel John Miller
Date: 2015 Oct 1, 22:59 -0400
https://www.google.com/patents/US2981143?dq=blish+sextant
Note the search phrase for Google patents above, Blish and sextant
is the link. But search blish sextant and see his three navigation patents.
I was really hoping that the wonderful sextant umbrella as Frank Reed posited would be there, but it wasn’t.
All close but no real cigar.
Still an interesting take on the idea of prisms and a sextant.
Funny do a patents (google) on Blish and Navigation and see what pops up!
This link will get you there:
this link is for a Scanning Sextant not unlike the aviation sextants I have seen:
And this link gets you a neat sounding tube for navigation: The Zera I
After reading the Wikipedia article on John Blish and learning he was Spanish American War it makes sense to me. The picture Wikipedia provides is an uncanny ringer for the one in Frank’s picture of Sextant Umbrella.
So I would guess the umbrella is something that was never awarded a patent, but was useful all the same.
Hope this answers Frank’s question.
Rommel John Miller
8679 Island Pointe Drive
Hebron, MD 21830-1093
410-219-2690 (Land and Home)
443-365-7925 (Cell)
From: NavList@fer3.com [mailto:NavList@fer3.com] On Behalf Of Bill Morris
Sent: Thursday, October 1, 2015 10:22 PM
To: rommeljohnmiller@gmail.com
Subject: [NavList] Re: Sextant with an umbrella
I agree with Luc. It's a Blish prism. More details and a patent drawing can be found here: http://sextantbook.com/2012/04/
Bill Morris
Pukenui
New Zealand
