NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Star Identification
From: Greg R_
Date: 2008 Jul 30, 11:41 -0700
From: Greg R_
Date: 2008 Jul 30, 11:41 -0700
--- Anabasis75@aol.com wrote: > This is correct, except when the cloud cover doesn't cooperate > with the pre-computed stars and you are left shooting whatever you > can see. Agreed... and like you said, it's a lot easier to do these days with computers/calculators/etc. - would have been a lot more problematic back in the "old days" having to do multiple sight reductions (or maybe partial reductions) manually trying to figure out just what it was that you sighted. Also points up how "spoiled" we are in this modern age of instant navigation that's usually accurate to just a few feet, wonder how much patience we'd have if we had to wait a couple (or maybe several) days before getting an accurate position fix. -- GregR --- Anabasis75@aol.com wrote: > Greg wrote: > > Usually you'll pre-compute elevations and azimuths of stars *before* > doing the sights, and then point the sextant accordingly (it's > usually > pretty obvious what star you're looking for, just look for the > brightest object in the sextant's field of view... ;-)). > > > ================= > > This is correct, except when the cloud cover doesn't cooperate with > the > pre-computed stars and you are left shooting whatever you can see. I > have had > this happen several times at sea, when the only stars I could shoot > were none > of the ones I wanted to shoot. > > To combat this, I recorded the approximate azimuth as well as > altitude. > Fortunately I was still shooting major stars and was able to find > them on my > star finder. If they had been minor stars, I probably would have > taken the easy > way out and just not reduced them (this was all before I had > computers for > this kind of work). > > JCA > > > > **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up > for > FanHouse Fantasy Football today. > (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---