NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Bowditch (2002) Table 17
From: Bill B
Date: 2012 May 01, 03:15 -0400
From: Bill B
Date: 2012 May 01, 03:15 -0400
On 5/1/2012 2:06 AM, Gary LaPook wrote: > The purpose of the dip short of the horizon table always eluded me since > you need to know accurately the distance from you to the intervening > shoreline which means that you had to know where you were and if you > knew that then why are you taking celestial observations in the first > place. Like many of us, I practice from a known position for fun and proficiency (including using the sextant for coastal piloting). Target shooting versus plinking. I prefer a natural horizon from a boat, but that is not always available (weather included). A shore will do. An AH is a court of last resort for me. For those that are not near a large body of water dip short could be handy--if the opposing shoreline is equidistant to your position on all compass points :-) For others it seems the process is purely academic. For observations from a known position only the magnitude of the intercept matters. Towards or away, azimuth, and plotting is irrelevant unless something goes terribly wrong. Bill B.