NavList:

   

Reply

I think, Chauvenet explains very well, why there
was no "Lunars era":

"The navigator having found his longitude
"by chronometer" wishes to verify it by "lunars".
He takes a set of distances with upmost care and
reduces them... His results are liable to the three
sources of error above mentioned, and...
the distance would produce in the longitude a mean error
of 38 seconds in time. Now his chronometer must have performed
very badly to be in error of 38 seconds...
He takes another set of distances and finds a still
greater discrepancy...

and upon making port finds that his chronometer is right."

This was written in 1868, when the time for the "Lunars era"
was gone long ago:-)

The time for the "Lunars era" was probably 60 or 70 years
earlier when chronometers "were expensive".

Notice that the price of a "good sextant" necessary for
decent lunars was about 4 times that of the "good quadrant".
of the same era.

(I don't know much about the price of chronometers).
In  our time good chronometers are about 2-3 times more
expensive than good sextants (on e-bay), but I understand
that this is not a fair indicator:-)

Alex.

   

Reply