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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Calculating accurate apparent-angles between stars
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2003 Jan 8, 00:29 +0000
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2003 Jan 8, 00:29 +0000
Fred Hebard asked, about Bruce Stark's Lunar Tables- >George > >I wonder whether you and Bruce could share your correspondence on his >method with the group. Reply from George- Well, our private correspondence covered those very questions that Bruce has just elucidated to the list, so I doubt it would add much more than he has just done. If there is more to add, I think it's up to Bruce to decide to provide it, or not. Many subscribers to this list, and owners of Bruce's tables, would value a full account of the thinking that went into their clever construction. We modern lunartics differ, I suggest, from old-time mariners: in general they would have been content with any tool that gave the right answers, whether or not they understood how it worked. I would like to think that most of us are driven by a greater degree of intellectual curiosity, and feel that we need to know what's going on. I hope Bruce can be persuaded to write an appendix to his lunar tables which explains their internal working. Will he take the hint? It's up to him. George Huxtable.