NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: lunars hard to shoot?
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2000 Sep 07, 6:34 PM
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2000 Sep 07, 6:34 PM
I was lucky enough to find a few years ago a Fuji quintant circa 1900, and had it restored recently. It's scale is graduated to about 150 degrees. I plan to use it for some lunars one of these days... Dan -----Original Message----- From Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of George Huxtable Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 2:59 PM To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Subject: Re: lunars hard to shoot? >My response to Carl's interesting contribution is this- >The original quadrant (invented by Hadley and simultaneously by the >American Godfrey) was so named because it could measure an angle of a >quarter of a circle (90 degrees), which was insufficient for many lunar >measurements. The instrument was later known as an octant, because its >scale subtended an angle of an eighth of a circle (45 degrees), but this >was a change in name only. To allow a greater lunar distance to be >measured, the sextant was later developed (for angles in the sky up to 120 >degrees) and then the quintant, as advocated by Lecky (angles to 144 >degrees) >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. ------------------------------
