NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Incomplete Instrument-- WWII German Soldsextant
From: Bill Morris
Date: 2020 Nov 30, 13:52 -0800
From: Bill Morris
Date: 2020 Nov 30, 13:52 -0800
Bob, Just like any sextant, the SOLD can be used without a telescope, sighting tube or peep sight. The telescope allows fainter objects like Polaris to be seen more brightly with bubble sextants and the coincidence with the horizon more clearly in nautical sextants. Captain Cook did not use a telescope until his second voyage and, while noting its advantages, found the motion of his ship usually too lively to be of much practical use. Of course, early Galilean telescopes, with their apertures of about 15 mm, had rather restricted fileds of view.
"SOLD" seems to be an acronym. Can anyone tell me what it is? I suspect it contains "sextant" and "libelle"(level).
Bill Morris
Pukenui
New Zealand
