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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Sextants with Polarizing filters
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Feb 6, 18:12 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Feb 6, 18:12 EST
Joel Jacobs, you wrote: "MAYBE THE BIG BUGABOO IS THAT WHEN SUBJECTED TO SALT SPRAY THEY TENDED TO FREEZE AND ALSO FROZE IN FEARCELY COLD CONDITIONS.. AND INTRODUCED ABOVE AVERAGE SHADE ERROR OVERALL." Regarding salt spray and freezing, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I have noticed that they stick hard in cold weather. I suspect that polarizing filters seemed like a nice "high tech" innovation 60 years ago, but in practice easy maintenance won the day. As for shade error, I can't think of any reason why polarizing shades should have greater error in general. And since the elements rotate, if there really was greater shade error, it would also be variable! -FER 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
