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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2017 Jan 29, 18:07 -0500
When I add up the right ascensions of stars on a 2102-D star finder (a recent Weems & Plath copy) and the SHAs of those stars from 2017 almanac data, I get just about 359.0° on average. The sum should be 360°. This implies that you can get better results from the star finder by subtracting 1° after calculating LHA Aries. It's another flaw in the old beast, but this one at least can be corrected. Consider it the star finder's index error.
I've been commissioned to design a new star finder for general use, by the way, so within a year we should see something that incorporates all the ideas we have been discussing for many years and leads to a genuinely practical, easy-to-use tool. The goal is to get it approved by regulatory agencies like the USCG and presumably license it to publishers to replace, supersede the old Rude design. Progress!
Frank Reed
ReedNavigation.com
Conanicut Island, New England
