
NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Vernier sextant
From: Ken Gebhart
Date: 2007 Mar 6, 21:22 -0600
From: Ken Gebhart
Date: 2007 Mar 6, 21:22 -0600
Allow me to chime in on this a little. Using the averager in the air is to compensate for a very regular and smooth motion. Typically, the navigator has his finger on the sextant knob, and tries to keep the body in the center of the bubble as the airplane goes through its motion. He may begin with increasing the altitude up to a degree of change, and then to follow it down two degrees, and then back up two degrees, and so forth until the averager has run its two minutes of operation. Thus, he has compensated for the natural motion of the airplane. If the air is rough, he cannot keep the body centered, but he at least knows what the overall trend is, and does his best to regain collimation as the sight progresses. Thus, the averager plays no part in compensating for the rough air, but only the natural motion of the airplane which the two minutes of time is predicated upon. Ken On Mar 6, 2007, at 3:12 PM, Bill wrote: > > Alex wrote > >> However, on a small boat, which sometimes swings like crazy >> on the waves, I do not exclude that the averager may be of some use. >> One just has to experiment. > > Thank you for the explanation. Fascinating. > > Do you feel one would stand a chance of keeping the bubble and object > aligned on s small craft in heavy seas? > > Bill > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To unsubscribe, send email to NavList-unsubscribe@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---