NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: What is a good sextant to buy?
From: Francis Upchurch
Date: 2019 Sep 3, 07:31 +0100
From: Francis Upchurch
Date: 2019 Sep 3, 07:31 +0100
I have used a Astra 3B for over 15 years. I've done hundreds of sun sights, star sights, lunars at sea and on land. I find it accurate, well built and better than me.(i.e. inaccurate results are usually my fault, not the sextant.) I have compared it with my fiends top of the line Freiberger which cost three times as much. Neither of us could tell the difference in performance and accuracy. A top line German sextant maybe more cool as an object d'art, if you have the money. I'm happy with my Astra. Don't know anything about Japanese sextants. I hear they a good but expensive. I would rather have a brand new Astra any day than a second hand German or Japanese classic. Good shooting. Francis -----Original Message----- From: NavList@fer3.com [mailto:NavList@fer3.com] On Behalf Of Alan S Sent: 03 September 2019 02:46 To: francisupchurch@gmail.com Subject: [NavList] Re: What is a good sextant to buy? Re your question, my opinion is as follows. Astra 3B. In all honesty, I'm a backyard navigator, that in quotes. I have used one of the above mentioned, standing on the beach in North Carolina taking sun shots, also sun and moon shots when both are visible during the day. Planet and moon shots at night too. My calculated positions are usually within a couple miles of GPS coordinates. Using an artificial horizon at home, my calculated positions are usually closer than that. By the way, I understand that the New York Merchant Marine Academy used Astra sextants. Price thereof might be a factor but my understanding is that the Astra 3B is a quality instrument. In conclusion, there is a lot of junk originating in China. There are also quality items. Good shooting. [plain text auto-generated] ---------------------------------------------------------------- NavList message boards and member settings: http://fer3.com/NavList Members may optionally receive posts by email. To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- : http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx/What-good-sextant-buy-AlanS-sep-2019-g45708
