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    Lunars on the Cicero (1827)
    From: Frank Reed CT
    Date: 2004 Jan 18, 19:40 EST
    In January 1827 the brig Cicero left New York loaded with cargo to sell in South America. They saild south to Maracaibo, had a devil of a time selling anything, eventually did some trading, and finally returned to New York in May 1827. Almost all of the navigation on this voyage consisted of dead reckoning calculations for longitude and latitude by Noon Sun. On the outbound voyage, there is interesting info on efforts to use lunars. The Cicero did not carry a chronometer, but they did have a watch which was set to local time.

    Here are the excerpts on lunars:
    Feb. 10 1827:
    "at Midnight attempted to take a Luner Observaton but found it too Cloudy"
    Feb. 11:
    "took a lunar Obs. by measuring the Dist. of Moon from Aldebaran: but the motion of the Vessel prevented taking a Correct Dist. as the reduced time gave the Long. something to the E.wd of the Lon. by acc"
    Feb. 12:
    "at 10 P.M. took a Luner Observation by Measuring the Dist. of the Moon from the Star Spica. The Long. Deduced therefrom was 63 00 West "
    [the DR lon on this date was 65 24 W]

    And that's it. No more lunars.

    On the return trip from South America, the only non-DR determination of longitude is by sighting land, of course, and maybe a little more interesting, by noting entry into the Gulf Stream. Some of you may recall that Joshua Slocum counted entry into the Brazil Current as a determination of longitude some 70 years later. This was an important non-astronomical technique in the early 19th century.

    Frank E. Reed
    [X] Mystic, Connecticut
    [ ] Chicago, Illinois
       
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