NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: star-to-star distances
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2004 Sep 30, 20:22 -0400
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2004 Sep 30, 20:22 -0400
Alexandre-
<I
don't like this because then I have to reset the stopwatch
for each observation. >
for each observation. >
Not so! Look for a $10 Casio stopwatch or
wristwatch with "lap" times on the stopwatch functions, most of them have this
and will say something like "lap/stop" next to the same button if they do. Then
just can start the stopwatch running exactly on the hour, so the stopwatch
00:00:00 matches the exact hour. (If you are off, no problem, just note the
difference and carry that as a constant.)
Then using the LAP button at the moment of
observation, you will freeze the "correct time" except of course you'll need to
add in the real hour, to the minutes/sec/decimal showing on the stopwatch. When
you hit LAP a second time, the watch snaps forward to the running time from when
the stopwatch was started. Next time you hit LAP, it again freezes the display.
Again, without changing the setting of the stopwatch.
As you alternate, you can freeze the display, note
the time, snap back to real time, freeze again, etc. to make note of as many
frozen times as you want.
The trick is to memorize exactly which button to
press, or buttons to press. Once you get that down, it becomes quite simple and
reliable. I've used a bit of velcro to attach a stopwatch with the correct
button directly under my thumb (on the arm) and it works very nicely, no need to
take your eye away from the scope at all, just squeeze, and then move to read
it.
