NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: ebay "reproduction"
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2013 Jan 10, 05:55 +0000
And that seems to be the case here, too. In one of the photos, we're looking through all three index shades and the index mirror is still clearly visible through them. That's no good.
Would you go further, Frank, and say that this sextant is therefore dangerous? Do we have a moral duty to in form ebay that they are selling a device which could blind if used in the manner in which it is obviously intended?
I have actually used an Indian reproduction sextant of the sort that was meant for "hanging on the wall in a restaurant". The shades on that particular 'instrument' were actually pretty good, and even though the scale precision was only one degree, I recall that the resulting fix was not too bad either. This 'instrument' is not obviously meant for the restaurant wall, but targets the novitiate celestial navigator who is looking for a cheap-but-good sextant and who would not realise that the shades are not adequate or anything close to being adequate.
Geoffrey
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2013 Jan 10, 05:55 +0000
And that seems to be the case here, too. In one of the photos, we're looking through all three index shades and the index mirror is still clearly visible through them. That's no good.
-FER
Would you go further, Frank, and say that this sextant is therefore dangerous? Do we have a moral duty to in form ebay that they are selling a device which could blind if used in the manner in which it is obviously intended?
I have actually used an Indian reproduction sextant of the sort that was meant for "hanging on the wall in a restaurant". The shades on that particular 'instrument' were actually pretty good, and even though the scale precision was only one degree, I recall that the resulting fix was not too bad either. This 'instrument' is not obviously meant for the restaurant wall, but targets the novitiate celestial navigator who is looking for a cheap-but-good sextant and who would not realise that the shades are not adequate or anything close to being adequate.
Geoffrey
