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    Re: An electronic sextant
    From: Lu Abel
    Date: 2013 Dec 15, 12:30 -0800
    You can get a crude translation of the web page by bringing up the page in Google's Chrome browser.    Shortly after loading the page the browser will say "it appears as if this page is in French, would you like me to translate it to English?"

    My guess from the limited description even in the translated page is that the inventor (an "avid sailor") has created a "point-and-shoot" device where you point it at a star and the internal electronics comes up with a (presumably fairly good) ha (I assume there's no need for a horizon, the electronics takes care of determining "down");   star identification should be easy given an approximate elevation and direction. 

    Shouldn't be too much more to incorporate a computerized almanac and sight reduction.

    Does this not make this device a low-cost civilian version of some of the automated sextants used in (if I recall correctly) the SR-71 aircraft among others?



    From: Frank Reed <FrankReed@HistoricalAtlas.com>
    To: luabel@ymail.com
    Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2013 12:05 PM
    Subject: [NavList] An electronic sextant


    Here's a puzzle:
    http://www.entreprises.ouest-france.fr/article/nautic-lingenieur-normand-cree-sextant-electronique-13-12-2013-122396
    How do you suppose it works? There's not much information in the article, but there aren't many options given its size and shape.
    -FER
    PS: Thanks to Luc Desmedt for passing along this link via Facebook. And by the way, if any of you are interested, there's a little FB group of people with interests in celestial navigation:
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/CelestialNavigation/.
    FB is not a place for serious discussions (that happens here), but it's a good place to meet other NavList members more socially.
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