NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Self Taught Celestial
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2013 Feb 27, 23:59 -0500
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2013 Feb 27, 23:59 -0500
Hi Paul
Is Lake Michigan frozen over at time of year? If so, you can try an ice horizon shot, like Worsley did for Shackleton in the ice of Antarctica. Just use the ice as you would the fresh water horizon. Will it be a perfect horizon? No, but often the real horizon is a fuzzy mess anyway. It might be fun to bundle up and try!
Brad
On Feb 27, 2013 9:31 PM, "Alexandre Eremenko" <eremenko@math.purdue.edu> wrote:
Paul, > I have recently become interested in learning celestial navigation You are welcome to this community. > After some further research, I have acquired Kolbe's "Long Term Almanac > 2000 - 2050", Burch's "How to Use Plastic Sextants", and the iPhone apps > Sight Calc and Timestamp. I've also acquired some plotting sheets, a > course plotter, parallel rules, and a Davis Artificial Horizon. That's a lot of equipment:-) All you need, besides a sextant, is a watch, pencil and paper. Almanac data are available online. Simple calculator helps a lot. > Along with a good watch (Casio Wave Ceptor > atomic), I should be self sufficient and determine my position. There were several discussions about "atomic" watches on this site. I mean watches which depend on outside signals. Short conclusion from these discussions I can state as follows: use ordinary Casio watch, which is independent of outside signals. You can check it from time to time by Internet or radio signals. But it is better that you check it yourself, rather then rely on automatic radio adjustment. > Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. Now just take some sights and reduce them. Of course it is better to use a real horizon if you have one within driving distance. If not, use an artificial horizon in your backyard. (A plate with water or spent automobile oil is OK if there is no wind). Alex.
