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I know my choice lies outside the bounds of what you described but my dream
choice of sextant would be a C.Plath design in which all of the components
are constructed from 316 stainless steel. I often wonder why no one ever
thought of using this material for a sextant. Perhaps because it cannot be
cast or perhaps because stainless steel is more prone to thermal changes
than bronze or brass.

Robert


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Hannibal" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 2:43 AM
Subject: Dream Choice of Sextant


> If you had a choice between a C&P Horizon Ultra and a
> C&P Pelorus which would you choose? Money isn't the
> issue.
>
> The use is the full breadth of uses to which you might
> put a sextant with an equal balance between
> star/planet sights, sun sights and coastal nav stuff -
> distance off, horizontal bearing etc.
>
> For those unfamiliar the key differences between the
> two instruments are:
>
> 1) both use the same frame and "running gear";
>
> 2) the Horizon Ultra has a whole horizon mirror,
> polarisers in both sets of shade glasses and
> Schueler's double prism to get verticality right. In
> other words it's a specialist sun machine;
>
> 3) the Pelorus has standard shades, an astigmatiser
> for stars and planets, and an unusual horizon mirror
> that is about 70% silvered in the a centre vertical
> strip and unsilvered on either side. It is designed to
> be very effective with dim stars but still OK brighter
> objects.
>
> I guess my current thinking is that the polarisers are
> nice and make sun brightness and horizon clarity very
> easy to get just right but that the Polaris is
> proabably better for stars as it isn't hampered by the
> known issues of a whole horizon mirror. On balance
> what I want is the Pelorus with the polarisers as
> well. I expect that verticality of the instrument will
> not be an issue when using the astigmatiser but that
> you'll just have to rock like you always do when doing
> sun/moon.
>
> Love to hear your views, and particularly if anyone
> has used the Polaris or the Horizon Ultra.
>
> Regards
>
> Pelorus
>
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