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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: sextant calibration
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2006 May 15, 08:00 +0100
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2006 May 15, 08:00 +0100
Red has written, about the zeroing gimmick sold with Plath sextants- | But failing to use the device, which can and often will eliminate one potential | source of math error from your reductions, makes absolutely no sense at all. It | would be what I call "belligerent ignorance", taking pride in NOT obtaining or | using the information and resources that in this case are literally at your | fingertips. Red can call it what he wishes. He seems determined to pick an argument, where none really exists. That's all right. I've done the same myself, many a time, though it's an urge than nowadays I do my best to control; not always with success. If Red distrusts his own arithmetic, to the extent that he lacks confidence in adding or subtracting the odd minute, or fraction thereof, in his head or on paper, then he may have a special problem. He is welcome to use that gimmick to avoid it, and I have not said anything contrary, if he reads what I actually wrote. But if his arithmetic is that untrustworthy, he is going to have difficulty at the next step, correcting for dip, refraction, semidiameter. On a slightly different matter, something else Red has said worries me somewhat. He wrote-| | While you've got a sextant in your hands for the first time, and presumably you | are taking the time to check it for errors and adjust them out... and in an earlier message- "But it is something that a user certainly would do the first time they got the sextant, and were trying to set up a baseline of adjustments on it, including the mirror positions." Well, that might be a reasonable attitude if a sextant arrives secondhand, with an unknown history from another owner. But I get the picture, rightly or wrongly, that if a sextant arrives new from its maker, properly packed in its undamaged box, Red is itching to get out the adjusting tool and tweak whatever he can get at. Such an instrument has presumably been adjusted at the factory, at least as well as it ever will be thereafter. What on earth does "set up a baseline of adjustments" mean? Red is perfectly welcome to tweak it as he wishes; it's his sextant, after all. A better policy, in such circumstances with a new instrument, might be to carefully check over all the relevant points (perpendicularity, side error, collimation), but most users would then be better advised to keep their hands off the adjustments, unless a serious error shows up. And if it does, in those circumstances, I would expect the maker to want to know about it. Yes, all sorts of adjustments are provided, to allow for correction for any events that occur in a sextant's life. And the maker properly provides an explanation of how to check the sextant and make those adjustments, if and when they become necessary. But that is not an invitation to get twiddling straight away, even if the new owner is a chap who enjoys doing so. Judging entirely by what he has written, Red appears to put himself into the category of a "sextant-worrier". Novice owners would be well-advised not to follow that path. I would be rather careful, about any instrument that has been in his possession. George contact George Huxtable at george@huxtable.u-net.com or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.