NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Stephen Bhatt
Date: 2026 Jul 5, 09:55 -0700
Patrick Twohy, I think I agree with you (and Greg) who identified the location as the splashdown of Alan Shepard in his Mercury capsule. I notice you did this entirely from the Noon Sun latitude. Josh also included two other Sun sights. I realized looking at the times that these represent almost the exact times of launch and splash. Shepard's sub-orbital flight was only 15 minutes. I figured out the azimuth of the Sun at the two times from that splashdown location, and the Sun shifted from 100 degrees to 103 d, centered almost on East.by.South. That's too close for a "good" fix, but how about a BAD fix? What I mean is if we ignore the Noon Sun sight, what would our fix be and how uncertain would it be with juat those two Sun sights separated by three degrees in azimuth?
Josh, any thoughts? And is Freedom7 splashdown the location you were imagining? Thanks again! ...Steve B
