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Richard B. Emerson wrote:
> It's the
> slight errors that are really annoying.  Maybe the boat moved, the body
> wasn't really on the horizon, the sextant was off the vertical, a second
> or two was lost in recoding the time... the list of reasons for these
> small but inescapable errors can be depressingly long.

Imagine 2 sights that can sit on, or very nearly on the slope and a
third that is only off by a small extent.  A resolution of this
dilemma that approximates averaging would be to put the line between
the pair and the single one, favouring the pair.  And that could be
the best solution.  With averaging its the only solution.

On the other hand, maybe the 2 sights are good ones and the other
indicates a greater extent of error.  Such is the agonising that slope
analysis can encourage!  Its fairly evident that more sights are
potentially helpful, although they can simply complicate things.

But at least with slope analysis you are afforded the opportunity to
do that agonising, which may entail trying to remember the
circumstances of each sight, compared to the others.  Sometimes you
just think "Yes!" at the time (about a sight), while are left feeling
doubtful about another observation, for a whole variety of reasons.

> After all, some assumptions can be made in error...

Yes, I agree with this.

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