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I wrote earlier:
"By 1800, there were many practical methods for clearing lunars available
which reduced the total time for the calculation (from beginning to end,
including calculating local apparent time) to twenty minutes or even less."

Michael you asked:
"Is there a good reference for this?  Something suitable for Wikipedia? "

Sure. You could reference E.J. White's article from 1887. He quotes ten
minutes as the time to clear a lunar observation using Thomson's tables.
Thomson's tables were first published in 1824. From 1767 through the early
19th century, the calculation time was between ten and twenty minutes. Prior
to 1767, the navigator had to calculate the Moon's celestial latitude and
longitude which took several hours. After 1767, the lunar distances were
tabulated in the almanac. That was responsible for the big savings in time.

 -FER
http://www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars


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