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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Ageton & HO 211
From: Tony S
Date: 1999 Jul 05, 11:00 PM
From: Tony S
Date: 1999 Jul 05, 11:00 PM
Paul: It's been a long time since I read (and reread) the section on many SR methods. Thanks for the reminder. As for the Weems credit, here is what Ageton says in the preface (Par 2): "With all the wealth of research which has taken place in celestial navigation since the turn of the century, it would be virtually impossible to produce a method which is original in its entirety. In the construction and arrangement of Table I, mention must be made of Souillagouet, Bertin, Newton, Ogura, Aquino, Weems, Dreisonstok, and Gingrich, the works of all of whom the author has studied." Further, he acknowledges his own work of table II published as HO 211, plus other sources and instructors at the USNA. Tony "Nostalgia is a thing of the past" Paul Hirose wrote: > > The Hydrographic Office first published HO 211 in 1931. Ageton > invented this sight reduction method. > > Someone named Weems devised the "New Line of Position Tables" around > the same time. This method required an assumed position such that LHA > and latitude were integers. It was not published until 1943. > > Ageton published his "Manual of Celestial Navigation" in 1942, > including the first Weems table as Table I and the HO 211 table as > Table II. Did he give any credit to Weems? > > All the above info is from Bowditch. I like reading the chapter on > the history of various sight reduction methods. Sad to say, I think > that story is over. Get your copies of HO 229 while it's still in > print! We'll never see anything like it again.