NavList:

Frank, to contiue a point you made:
"First, you get the local time by any of various methods. For example, you can observe the Sun's altitude in the late afternoon for an accurate determination of local apparent time."

I assume one of those methods could be the time sight where given the late afternoon sun's Dec, DR Lat (by previous LAN sights) & Ho you have three sides of nav triangle and your looking for t.   Ho gives ZD, Co-Lat, Polar Distance complete the triangle sides.  t is angular difference between the observer's meridian and the hour angle of the body. The time sight, essentially treats the sextant as a high class sun dial because the equation finds the meridian angle, thus LAT. (sextant/sun-dial metaphor .. is F.Reed)

And I assume early morning or late afternoon sights minimize the t error as long as the sights are not so low that there is unmanagable refraction issues.

Is this right?

Ed Popko