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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Re: David Thompson's Navigational Technique
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2004 May 31, 15:03 EDT
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2004 May 31, 15:03 EDT
The plot thickens.
I was reading George's post again, and didn't skim over the part where he says "Wouldn't an angle of 24" in lunar-distance convert to 48" (not 12") in time, which would convert to 12 minutes (not 3 minutes) of longitude?" That's been cleared up now. But since he was right, I wanted to work the observations and try to figure out what was going on.
Just as Thompson may have done, I turned to a 1796 edition of Moore for the sun's declination. But after taking the declination out (of Table XVII for the years 1792, 1796, 1800, and 1804) I noticed some small print in the table heading: "Each being Leap-Year." An alarm went off.
The point is, 1800 was not a leap year. It isn't divisible by 400. Wasn't this the cause a big foofaraw, and a humiliation for Moore? For Oct. 11th the declination is given as 7° 24' south. For Oct. 12th, 7° 47' south. Is that correct?
Bruce
I was reading George's post again, and didn't skim over the part where he says "Wouldn't an angle of 24" in lunar-distance convert to 48" (not 12") in time, which would convert to 12 minutes (not 3 minutes) of longitude?" That's been cleared up now. But since he was right, I wanted to work the observations and try to figure out what was going on.
Just as Thompson may have done, I turned to a 1796 edition of Moore for the sun's declination. But after taking the declination out (of Table XVII for the years 1792, 1796, 1800, and 1804) I noticed some small print in the table heading: "Each being Leap-Year." An alarm went off.
The point is, 1800 was not a leap year. It isn't divisible by 400. Wasn't this the cause a big foofaraw, and a humiliation for Moore? For Oct. 11th the declination is given as 7° 24' south. For Oct. 12th, 7° 47' south. Is that correct?
Bruce
