NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Timed Noon sights for position
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2004 Jan 21, 14:09 -0800
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2004 Jan 21, 14:09 -0800
There are many procedures and many ways to accomplish the same goal.In my
origonal post on this matter I put forward this method as one of the methods
used.Some list members were horrified.Most times one doesn't use the Noon
sight to obtain longitude.I wished to show that when needed(deteriorating
conditions or circumstances)it can be used to give an approximation of
longitude where only an estimated latitude was calculated.One more tool.
Sometimes one doesn't have the luxury of turning the ships head from the
trackline to obtain celestial course lines(as Joel noted)or the time to
shoot double altitudes or multiple averaging sights.Are there pitfalls
useing this method?You bet.
-----Original Message-----
From: Navigation Mailing List
[mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of Noyce, Bill
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 13:33
To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
Subject: Re: Timed Noon sights for position
Doug, I'm sorry if I misunderstood, but it looked as if you
computed the time of LAN at your estimated position, then
took a single sight at that computed time (to the best of
your ability). While this might provide a reasonable estimate
of your latitude, using it for longitude involves a circular
argument -- the only input is the time you computed, so of
course your result is equal to your estimated longitude.
Or was there some other procedure used to determine the "time"
to record along with the sextant altitude?
-- Bill
