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Frank,

Attached is my attempt at a New Yorker cartoon.

Greg Rudzinski

Re: Funny Questions while Practicing CN (Was "The Future of CN...")
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2013 Sep 3, 08:49 -0700
Greg, you wrote:
"At the beach once a dog came up to me while I was fully involved with a Sun observation."

LOL. For a moment, I expected (given the subject line) that you were going to tell us that the DOG asked you a funny question. I think there's a 'New Yorker' cartoon in there...

And:
"Do you think this K9 mistook the sextant for a T-bone steak ;-)"

Or a frisbee. Next time he shows up, throw the sextant twenty yards down the beach and see if he brings it back to you. :)

As for me, I have found that a modest majority of people recognize the device as a sextant or "one of those navigation things" (with the word on the tip of their tongues but given the mental taboo against saying 'sex' in the wrong context, they are reluctant to say it). Many know the phrase celestial navigation. Others have asked if it's some sort of telescope, and they want to see the Moon through it. Those folks are the ones who are usually disappointed since they are hoping to see a nice astronomical view. One of the thirteen-year-old girls last weekend asked if it was an astrolabe. So very close in principle. She said something about studying that in their Earth Science class.

Next question: what is the shortest explanation you can give for what it is? For starters, not what it's for or how it's used. But if you say 'sextant' that probably means very little unless they already know. So if you have someone come up to you and says, "what the heck is zat thing?", how can you define in it one short, satisfying sentence? I usually describe it as "like a telescope that lets you look in two directions at once... for measuring the exact position of the Sun in the sky". If they show interest or seem inclined to chat, we go from there.

-FER
PS: Here's a 'New Yorker' cartoon from 1993 (!) involving technology and a dog. The cartoon has an entire Wikipedia article devoted to it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog

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