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    Re: Sextant stands; was Lunar Distances: Graphic Methods
    From: Kieran Kelly
    Date: 2004 Apr 25, 18:38 +1000

    No they weren't custom made. Royal Navy hydrographers used them when taking
    shore based lunar distance observations and you can find them occasionally
    mentioned on exploration manifests.  They were manufactured by Troughton,
    Cary and Dolland to name a few and usually came in a leather case as a kit
    including stand, sextant and artificial horizon. I have a Plath catalogue
    from the 1920's where they were still making and selling stands. There is an
    excellent example in the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney. It however is
    a surveying octant and a very large and heavy one. the stand was necessary
    to support the weight of the very large instrument.
    
    Pictures of the stands are shown in Ifland's Taking the Stars, pages 126,
    127 and 136.
    
    I have been trying to buy a sextant stand for years to no avail so if any
    old surveyor has one in the garage I would like to hear from you. In all the
    time I have been collecting sextants I have never seen a stand offered on E
    bay and that's saying something given the plethora of stuff that washes
    through its sextant site.
    
    Kieran Kelly
    Sydney
    
    
    

       
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