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I'm in Gary's camp. When I take my sight, I utter "Mark...one thousand, two
thousand, three thousand.....", look at my watch and note the seconds, then
subtract. Works quite well for me except in winter when it is dark and cold
and I have fumble with lights and pulling up my parka sleeve to access my
wristwatch. Then things get interesting. As for watch error, I have the rate
of my watch's gain fairly well pegged so it is just a matter of applying the
correction based on the number of days since I last set the watch to the NRC
time signal.

Or I just turn on my GPS and follow the arrow ;-)

Robert



----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: "NavList" 
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 3:48 PM
Subject: [NavList 3483] Re: Single-handed sights


>
> Gary LaPook writes:
>
> I use the inverse of your method, I start counting seconds from the
> time of the sight until I can look at my watch, never more than 3
> seconds so less opportunity for the count to get off by any
> significant amount. I use a digital watch that has a push button for
> illumination at night. I check its error after the round of sights
> using a more accurate watch or radio time signal.
>
> gl
>
> On Oct 22, 10:29 am, Lu Abel  wrote:
>> Gary J. LaPook wrote:
>> > Gary LaPook wrote:
>>
>> > I use one of those little hand held dictaphones. I put it in my shirt
>> > pocket, start it recording and then just talk into it with the sextant
>> > altitude and time.M uch easier than trying to juggle sextant, pencil
>> > and
>> > paper especially if taking many sights. Go below and play it back and
>> > write down the figures.
>>
>> I think everyone's experience will be different, but at one point in
>> learning celestial I took a lot of sights without a helper.
>>
>> How?  First, I pre-adjusted my sextant to be close to the expected Hs.
>> Then I looked at my watch and noted time to the second.  Then I simply
>> started counting one-one hundred, two-two hundred, ... while I adjusted
>> my sextant to its final reading.  Then noted time and reading in my
>> notebook.
>>
>> With this method, you should be able to get a sextant reading within 15
>> to 20 seconds of starting counting.  I did a few trial runs of simply my
>> time counting to make sure I wasn't counting too fast or slow.  I
>> believe that even after 30 seconds I was within one second or less.
>>
>> I was taking sights from a known position and my readings were no less
>> accurate than what I got when using a helper on previous expeditions.
>>
>> Lu Abel
>
>
> >
>



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