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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Lunars: altitude accuracy
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Oct 24, 03:34 EDT
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Oct 24, 03:34 EDT
When shooting lunars, accuracy in the altitudes doesn't matter much. We've all heard that. But how much does it matter? I propose that you can get by with a 6 arcminute error for lunar distances around 90 degrees, assuming you want no more than an 0.1 minute resulting error in the cleared distance, but that generally the required accuracy (for constant altitudes) is proportional to the sine of the distance which means that for short distance lunars, the altitudes have to be significantly more accurate. This is yet another reason why short distance lunars would not have been popular historically.
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
