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Ken,

Many thanks for this useful information.
Now I have all these almanacs and can compare
them with Frank's online almanac on the dates
of some Cook's observations.
Then I will be able to tell what part of his error
was due to the almanacs.

Alex.

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Ken Muldrew wrote:

>
>
> On 18 Apr 2007 at 12:06, Alexandre E Eremenko wrote:
>
> > I think I have those almanacs
> > (downloaded when this collection was still free).
> > I just wanted to make sure that he
> > used exactly the same published Nautical almanacs
> > (rather than some more precise data his
> > astronomers-associates could possibly provide).
> > One thing which makes me doubt is this:
> > Cook's voyages lasted more than one year.
> > The ordinary almanac is published just one year ahead,
> > even now. Then how did Cook obtain the data for
> > more than one year?
>
> >From the paper "Tabulating the Heavens: Computing the Nautical Almanac in
> 18th Century England" by M. Croarken, IEEE Annals of the History of
> Computing 25(3): 48-61. 2003:
>
> "...on his first voyage of exploration (1768-1771), Captain Cook was able
> to take with him only the Nautical Almanacs for 1768 and 1769, but on his
> second voyage (1772-1775), he was able to take with him the editions for
> 1772, 1773, 1774, and the few sheets from 1775 that were ready. By 1783,
> the Nautical Almanac was regularly being published four or five years
> ahead, and by 1793 the work was being completed up to 10 years ahead,
> although publication was never more than five years ahead."
>
> Ken Muldrew.
>
> >


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