NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Beginner with inaccurate results
From: Asbjørn Djupdal
Date: 2005 Aug 30, 12:24 +0200
From: Asbjørn Djupdal
Date: 2005 Aug 30, 12:24 +0200
Hi. I have just startet learning celestial navigation, and have bought a Davis 15 sextant. Even though it has been rather cloudy here in Trondheim after I got the sextant, I have managed to get some "shots". I am however not satisfied with my results, my observed height is up to 6.5' different from calculated height. This is strange as I can easily notice a 6.5' index error. And my observed height is always (with no exceptions yet) less than calculated height. One would think that if I am just inaccurate, my results should be on both sides of the calculated values. So I am starting to thing I do something wrong. Here is what I do, hopefully a kind person reads through it and finds an error: I use a Davis artificial horizon with colored glass. 1. First I adjust mirrors. Horizon mirror is adjusted so that when setting sextant to 0 degrees and looking at the sun, both reflected and real sun overlaps completely. 2. Then I remove some filters from horizon mirror (could there be some refraction here?) and measure height. Lower limb on sun is taken down to touch upper limb of sun's reflection in the artificial horizon. 3. I note height, GMT and then check index error with same procedure as in 1. 4. Then I calculate, this is an example I took yesterday: date: 29/8-2005 GMT: 13-52-23 body: sun, lower limb GPS long: E10° 24.7 GPS lat: N63° 25.4 Sextant heigth: 57° 58.4' index error: 0' halve height: 28° 59.2' correction: 14.4' observed height: 29° 13.6' GHA hour: 14° 47.3' GHA inc: 13° 5.8' GHA 27° 53.1' LHA: 38° 17.8' Decl. hour: N9° 12.4' d-correction: 0.8' Decl: N9° 13.2' Calculated height: 29° 20.0' Height difference: 6.4' Asbjørn