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: Fred Hebard
Date: 2004 Jan 22, 19:40 -0500
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2004 Jan 22, 19:40 -0500
Bob, You should go back and read George Huxtable's recent post on the accuracy of this method. George's opinion was echoed a few months earlier by Herbert Prinz, who is the other expert in astronomy who has been on this list for a long time. It is quite clearly not very accurate. But it's good in a pinch, as Doug has pointed out. Fred Hebard > with respect to accuracy of the above method, it can be noted that > each 4 > seconds of inaccuracy in estimating the time of local noon affects the > resulting computed longitude by one minute of arc. I would guess most > people > could at least do better than 2 or 3 minutes of error under favorable > conditions, and with an accurate chronometer. > > Bob Young >