NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Use of Sun Sights for Local time, and Lunars for Longitude
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2002 Oct 24, 14:56 +0100
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2002 Oct 24, 14:56 +0100
Dan Allen wrote, about recent discussion on calculalating the altitudes of bodies involved in a lunar distance- >When the current debate is settled, perhaps if you had time you could >incorporate these developments and repost your corrected Lunars >treatise, parts 1-4? Yes, I think that could be useful some time soon, provided no holes are found in the method involving the Sun Local Hour Angle that Bruce Stark and also Bill Noyce put forward some months ago (and more recently). In Part 4 of "About Lunars" I raised the matter of calculating altitudes for lunars by what I have since termed the "naive", and inaccurate, method, and advised against it because of its deficiencies. Now we all seem to be accepting the viability of a much more accurate procedure, there's useful matter that I could add to Part 4, but I don't think there's anything I would retract from what is said there. So it would be in the nature of an addition, not a correction. What will have to come first, however, is Part 5, which has been so long delayed that it has become a bit of a joke, in my own family and no doubt elsewhere. A number of matters concerning lunars, in particular this question of calculating altitudes, have been bugging me, and it's satisfying now to have reached some sort of understanding. Perhaps that will remove the block... ================= After completing the final part, then I see a need to restructure that series of email postings "About Lunars" into a more useful format, and I would welcome advice about that from the list. Dan has suggested a book, but I have some doubts about that because of the small and specialised readership. My preference is to construct a web-site, which would allow addition of diagrams and properly written-out equations rather than having it all in emailese as at present. I have a very limited experience in this, as I have constructed, and maintain, a simple website for our local inshore-based cruising club. If anyone's interested, it's at www.huxtable.u-net.com/whitehorse.htm This has been done by typing up all the html commands directly, which is a bit of a pain, to say the least. Can anyone (on-list or off-list) suggest a useful tool for web-writing, which is likely to run on my very ancient Mac (an LC3, running system 7.5.1), which can produce stuff compatible with Explorer 4.1 (which I can't upgrade), and which can handle diagrams and proper equations? Don't tell me: that old computer needs upgrading. It's true, but I don't want the hassle of it. George Huxtable ------------------------------ george@huxtable.u-net.com George Huxtable, 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. Tel. 01865 820222 or (int.) +44 1865 820222. ------------------------------