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On 21 Dec 2004 at 1:46, Alex Eremenko wrote:

> What bothers me with this conjecture is that all his lunars
> you posted were pretty bad.
> So I was looking for some more general explanation of this
> than a single random error.

That conjecture merely explains the two lunars on Nov. 26, 1800. I think
it's pretty reasonable to say that for those two, his sights were
acceptable but his work up was sloppy. Also, it speaks to the point Frank
Reed was making in the "no lunars era" thread. Since Thompson already knew
where he was, he didn't notice his mistake since the errors mostly
cancelled each other (by shear coincidence) and gave him answers that he
expected. Lunars are more of a check on the DR rather than the other way
around.

Once I get the old almanac pages for the others, then we should be able to
see whether Thompson was sloppy, error-prone in his work-ups, or doing as
well as could be expected given the inherent error in lunar theory. Those
lunars will be better for this since we know exactly where he was and no
assumptions about his account and his location will have to be made. I'll
post those findings once I get them.

Ken Muldrew.

   

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