NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: good data from bad
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2001 Dec 07, 6:18 PM
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2001 Dec 07, 6:18 PM
'A detailed description of this technique (called Slope Fitting) can be found at the StarPath site' It certainly can. Its wonderful, the way this group generates so much information. The advantage of the method I use (see earlier message 'good data from bad') is that it uses printed forms, one to calculate the 'change of altitude' slope, the other is for plotting, with the divisions for time and altitude marked, and spaces for noting the relevant data. One of the biggest practical problems I come across when investigating new navigational techniques is finding a methodical routine to note down the workings. Otherwise I can't make sense of my own workings when later on I need to follow the process again. Finding this 'change of altitude' technique was one kind of Eureka! moment. Others, less dramatic but so valuable, have come when I find a form to follow that allows me to simplify and codify some process, that turns an interesting theory into a practical routine to be followed. Another advantage is that it simplifies checking the work for errors. Another is that you learn to instantly identify the different printed forms, instead of pondering a page covered in hieroglyphics and wondering just what that was all about. That book ('The Complete On-Board Celestial Navigator') has another form for sight reductions: its the one I use because its clear and simple to follow, even when the data comes from somewhere else; for example the Silicon Sea series. Peter Fogg