NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: accuracy of Cook's lunars
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2012 Dec 31, 14:01 -0800
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2012 Dec 31, 14:01 -0800
Yeah, I just filed Cook as "18th century" without thinking that there was very likely a tremendous improvement in the accuracy of instruments over the century as scientific instrument-making advanced. And Cook was certainly "late 18th century" so top-of-the-line instruments (which I assume he had since his was a voyage of mapping and exploration) would be close to even today's in accuracy.
From: "eremenko@math.purdue.edu" <eremenko@math.purdue.edu>
To: NavList@fer3.com
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 12:14 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: accuracy of Cook's lunars
Lu,
I agree with most that you say, except this:
> Last but not least, let's remember that Cook was using an octant
On my opinion, there was no progress in the accuracy of the best
sextants/octants since the time of Cook (if all corrections
properly applied, which they did). The progress was only in the
ease and convenience of use.
Perhaps also in durability and lower price.
I never had an opportunity to observe with a high-quality XVIII century
sextant, but my analysis of Cook's observations, and some other
early observations show that they had about the same accuracy as
later observations, including my own, and other members of the list.
Alex.
