NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Jupiter's moons
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2002 Mar 21, 00:48 +0000
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2002 Mar 21, 00:48 +0000
In the 18th/19th century navigators were often also explorers. This is the reason why in many good treatises on navigation of that time, including those of Moore and Bowditch, there is often a chapter on surveying and (harbour) charting. In the same spirit, one will find a discussion of Jupiter satellite eclipses. They were observed on land, not at sea. Attempts at sea had been aborted early. Occultations played no role at all. They are unsuitable for longitude determination. The situation was not unlike that of establishing latitude in the 15th century. The Portugese explorers sailing down the West coast of Africa would establish their latitude _after_ landfall. Herbert Jared Sherman wrote: > Nigel- >> > And this is a NAUTICAL book, expecting marine navigators are going to be able to examine Jupiter's moons?? Did anyone really do that back then?
