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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: from a watcher
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2002 Oct 23, 08:30 +1000
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2002 Oct 23, 08:30 +1000
> The form I use goes: 1 Day and Date (local) 2 Body 3 Observed Watch Time 4 Watch Correction (+Slow, -Fast) 5 Standard Time 6 Time Zone (+West -East) 7 GMT (h m s) - check GMT date! 8 GMT (Degrees & Minutes) 9 GHA or (GHA-GMT) of body 10 SHA of star 11GHA (Sum) 12 DR Longitude (+East - West) 13 LHA 14 DR Latitude 15 Declination 16 (column for adding up results of sight reduction) 17 Latitude~Declination 18 Computed Altitude 19 Sextant Altitude 20 Dip 21 Sextant Correction (-On, + Off Arc) 22 Apparent Altitude 23 Altitude Corrrection 24 Observed Altitude 25 Intercept 26 Azimuth As you can see, it is a little bit 'CN for Dummies' as someone asked for. There is none of that Ho and Hs stuff, its mostly in plain language.To use with it I have one page of instructions that walk you through the process step by step with a Time/Degrees conversion table on the other side. This sheet is covered in plastic as it gets used all the time and makes a handy bookmark. Everything else I need is in one slim hardcover book that lies open flat - sight reduction, examples, almanac, prediction and indentification, star finder, detailed instructions for everything from noon sights to finding amplitude to finding latitude via Polaris to averaging sights, 3 different methods for calculating azimuth and all sorts of other forms that can be photocopied. There is space for 4 bodies on one sheet, 8 if printed on both sides. David Weilacher wrote: > Whats wrong with becoming proficient > enough at sight reduction to make forms moot? I keep referring back to the form to check, for example, the + and - when converting local time to GMT and vice versa. This form can be used with other sight reduction methods, its just a handy way of laying out the process step by step. It must be great to know and understand the whole process so well you can carry it all in your head, but I'm not quite there yet.
