NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Lunars
From: Nigel Gardner
Date: 2001 Jul 10, 6:01 PM
From: Nigel Gardner
Date: 2001 Jul 10, 6:01 PM
Herbert Prinz wrote "It was not fair of you to send us on a wild goose chase......etc" I admit that my first question was much too general but as it happened it generated some very interesting responses. The reason for the query was partly historical and partly practical, firstly, did all the work that was done by Maskelyne and others to produce a set of Tabulated LD's mean that there was no solution of longitude without them (assuming no accurate timekeeper) and secondly if today the timekeepers and GPS on a vessel went down because of electrics failure, lightning strike or whatever would it still be possible to find longitude given that the vessel would be carrying a sextant, almanac and tables. This raises a philosophical question of why people are interested in lunars anyway, for example for historical or practical reasons or to be involved in 'traditional navigation'; if the latter then is the use of computers and calculators compatible in principle? NG
