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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The lost expedition of La Perouse
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2005 Jun 8, 19:29 +0100
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2005 Jun 8, 19:29 +0100
Marc Bernstein wrote- >I didn't realize sextants had been around so long. Of course we are not >talking about sextants as we know them today. =============== Reply from George. Well, not so very different, Marc. What you would notice first is that there was no micrometer drum. Just a fine-ajustment screw, but then you had to read the angle directly off the engraved arc, with the help of a Vernier scale and a magnifying lens. You would find a longer telescope with smaller mirrors and a more restricted field of view. Somewhat heavier, being larger than a modern instrument, and made of brass, not aluminium. But otherwise, you could pick up an eighteenth-century sextant, and hardly notice the difference between that and your own. For further information, I recommend "Taking the Stars", by listmember Peter Ifland, beautifully illustrated. ================================================================ contact George Huxtable by email at george@huxtable.u-net.com, by phone at 01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. ================================================================
