NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: accurate sextant
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2008 Feb 21, 15:58 -0500
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2008 Feb 21, 15:58 -0500
Dear Bill (Engineer), > I think the SNO-T(sometimes designated SNO-T) is probably > the best nautical sextant ever made. > Mechanically, it is sound and the > optics, by Zeiss, are superb. This is an interesting statement:-) I would never say this unless I tried really many sextants. (In my Cel Nav career I tried an SNO-T, an Astra-IIIB, a very old C.Plath (1900) and a Tamaya-CLONE seriously, not counting a pocket sextant, and Astra-III-Professional, Cassens-Plath, Freiberger, Husun (old) and an old used C. Plath for a short time (let's say "in a store"). Of those listed above, SNO-T indeed seems the best, but mainly because of its 6x scope. The main disadvantage of SNO-T from my point of view is the "enclosed worm" construction. This is supposed to protect it from dust and bugs, but in fact it prevents you from cleaning and inspection of the worm screw. The same construction is shared by Freibergers and some Belgian sextants. > The SNO-M is not quite so easy to use > for the beginner as it has only one telescope, > a x6 that gives on > inverted image, This 6x inverting telescope seems to be the most important feature (which you do not find in other modern sextants). I add that a "normal" 3.5x sextant telescope that fits most modern sextants also fits SNO (M and T) and it can be probably bought from Celestaire. The factory package of SNO-T contains two telescopes, the famous 6x and a standard 3.5x. Alex. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---