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Captain Cook and plane table
From: Richard M Pisko
Date: 2009 Jan 30, 23:52 -0700
From: Richard M Pisko
Date: 2009 Jan 30, 23:52 -0700
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:46:20 -0700, Nicol�s de Hilsterwrote: > For what I understood Cook charted New Zealand using a plane table from > a ship and still did quite a proper job. He must have used similar > techniques to get his positions right. I liked that recent CBC-TV hour on Cook, at least the part that included the very good survey of Newfoundland. It did show him doing the work from the beach with a simple vane alidade, but I believe reading angles with a sextant and plotting them with a station pointer would let him do good work from the deck of an anchored ship. The charts he made of the coastline of NL were shown on the program (I hope they were the real ones) and a little "photoshopping" was done to superimpose Cook's on the older charts, and then on the most modern version. He did what looked to be excellent work. I wonder if he had a way to keep the sextant level, so as to avoid taking the "slanted" angle, while still being able to align his chosen reference stations. Were your shore stations in Nigeria set up to be more or less at the level of your chart room on the ship? It wouldn't make very much difference, I suppose, but I do wonder if the effort was thought worth-while. -- Richard . . . Using Opera 9.2.4 after the "Dog" died --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---