NavList:

Dear Frank,

On the published version of my last post you deleted not only the text from NavList archives, but also my question at the end of the post. It was about telescope, which is adjusted parallel to the plane of the sextant: can the contact be realised anywere in the field of view? Without this question the post loses it’s meaning.

I know your attitude regarding NavList archives. You remaind it from time to time.

But your attitude is somehow dual in this particular case. On the one hand you claim that archives are bad and it is bad practise to ask questions based on them; on the other hand you invite to ask questions. As I understand, if I have a question that arose due to some problem I have found in the archives, according to your position — it is very bad by definition.

Questions can not always arise in an empty place. Sometimes even seemingly stupid question may contain a complex problem in it. For example, if you ask any ordinary person a question “which water will freeze faster, cold or hot”, I think  99% of people will answer: “it goes without saying that cold water will freeze the first!”. But this answer is wrong. And anyone can test it at his home; no science lab is required.

Some years ago I had very similar situation regarding navigation. There was a discussion in NavList about impact of the side error to the accuracy. It seemed to me obvious that this impact is equal through the all range of sextant angles. Then you, Frank, explained in detail that this is not so. I was absolutely wrong. But at the same time  I was happy to learn something new; something that was hardly be possible to find in any book.

When I asked your coments about telescope parallelity I thought that maybe there is some unknown to me nuance; that maybe with some modern optics it is possible to achieve different results than with an ordinary inverting scope.

Sorry for my stupid questions. I am only a self-taught amateur of navigation. My best teachers are two: historic sources from the past and you, Frank, from the present. I have not attended your classes, but you are my teacher through the NavList comunity. Almost every your post is like a little lecture in navigation. Your contribution can not be overestimated. Your ability to navigate such a wide range of issues is amazing. I don’t understand how one person can operate such a huge amount of information in his head.

But there are some situations when I don’t agree with you. And this is one of them. You wrote:

“Please do not abuse the archives. NavList is a community for live discussions. If you can't communicate without excavating in the archives, you're not really trying “.

You don’t like archives. But I do. Of course, I agree that there are plenty of low quality information there, but all the information can be checked and doublechecked by looking in different reliable sources or by asking questions.

For example, I was so excited following your posts about your invention (or reinventions, it does not matter) of the method to get Fix by only lunar distances. How do you imagine I could find anything like that by NOT EXCAVATING the archives? You think I could wake up some morning by saying: “hey, I will ask a question in NavList about getting fix by lunars”???  Sorry for me not being such a genius.

My intention was not offend you, but simply ask your coments about your own post in the past. I could not even imagine that this is a crime. And I am really sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.

Modris Fersters