NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Hybrid artificial horizon
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2020 Jul 26, 19:29 -0700
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2020 Jul 26, 19:29 -0700
Just a thought though - is it necessary to use a level to set the morror up and then use the sun images for final adjustment?
It's not necessary to use a fancy level, no; just roughly level is fine to start. I used the circular bubble level on the tribrach, and to double-check I used my phone on the top of the mirror, since the plane of the tribrach screw tops is not known. Either of these schemes is fine to get within a fraction of a degree, enough to see the ghost images.
I googled machinists level and they are available for a few hundred dollars which is more than I am prepared to pay for an experiment.
There's also the option of buying the vial and making one's own enclosure, which has been discussed before on NavList. I have such a vial, sourced from eBay, and a plastic 3D-printed mount. It works, but it could be improved with a stiffer metal mount that does a better job of thermally isolating the vial.
Cheers,
Peter
