NavList:

You did much better than me Frank.

My first sight was in 1983, on land, with an RAE MKIXA bubble sextant. I
thought I had it aced too, and was out 20 miles. My instructor soothed my
wounded ego and told me to keep trying. 23 years later and I am still
hooked.

Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Reed" <FrankReedCT@aol.com>
To: "NavList" <NavList@fer3.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 11:50 PM
Subject: [NavList 91] first sextant sights


>
> I first used a sextant in a celestial navigation class back in 1978 at
> Mystic Seaport. I remember being confident that I could do this easily,
> and I was rather shocked to discover that my fix was something like 4
> nautical miles out. Of course, I got better.
>
> But how good can your first experience be? Last September when we had a
> lunars meeting in Mystic, a bunch of us shot lunar distance sights at
> Stonington Point the following afternoon. One among us had never picked
> up a sextant before. We told him roughly what to do. He spent a few
> minutes fiddling with the instrument and adjusting for that perfect
> contact between the Sun and the Moon. We noted the time and then worked
> up the sight. The error was 0.1 minutes of arc. A TENTH of a minute of
> arc on his very first sextant sight! I suggested that he should retire.
>
> Come on now... who wants the cookie? we're almost up to a hundred
> messages ;-)
>
> -FER
>
>
> >


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