NASA develops new type sextant

[acem]

I have been researching sextant and celestial navigation. I am buying some equipment and books to learn the basics.

So I'm searching and come across this interesting article. I can make one myself!

https://spacecenter.org/try-this-at-...ild-a-sextant/

Thx-Ace

[SeanPatrick]

There's also this one you can make from a CD case and some LEGOs®:


https://www.tecepe.com.br/nav/CDSextantProject.htm







______________________________________________
So far, so good ... so what?

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by acem

I have been researching sextant and celestial navigation. I am buying some equipment and books to learn the basics.

If really bored, consider reading into ancient astronomy, back to the Babylonian era. Certainly they created devices to measure things down to a degree or so, and otherwise mapped out lunar cycles and certain planetary cycles to a high degree (some of it maybe encrypted in the Old Testament).
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ablet-reveals/
And a book printed on unobtanium:
https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-.../dp/354006995X

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by Singularity

And a book printed on unobtanium:
https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-.../dp/354006995X

$3200!!


I paid less for my 1781 printing of the Tables Requisite ... and that's actual history!

[Montanan]

Been around for years.

[Riddle]

Look for an Astrolabe, it's much better

[Thumbs Up]

I knew a guy who sailed from San Diego to Hawaii on an Aquarius 23 using nothing but a protractor like the one shown and a National Geographic map as a chart. He also used an AM radio as direction finder when he got close enough. He wasn't trying to break a record or prove a point. He basically didn't know any better. He had no gps. He did have a compass. His mainsail was from a Hobie cat. His 2 way radio was a CB. He used the north star as his reference. He left Kauai bound for Alaska several months later and was never seen again. Sad story but true.

[belizesailor]

Also see David Burch's "Emergency Navigation" for some similar/related ideas...


https://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Nav.../dp/0877422605

[barnakiel]

If you are happy with give or take 1000 miles accuracy.


Otherwise invest in YRVINDS SEXTANT (or build one).


b.

[Adelie]

Given an accurate watch and nothing else you can establish your position within 20nm. Plenty to hit a Hawai'i landfall.

[acem]

Its interesting the things you can do if ya just put out the effort.

I have read stories of people sailing from California to Hawaii and back without any navigational instruments. They follow the contrails in the sky to Hawaii. Back to California, they just go east until you find land.

Back in the 70s my father in law and his teenage son put a rowboat in the Mississippi in northern Missouri. They floated down until they found New Orleans. They found a payphone and called home for someone to come get them!

I'm not quite that seat of my pants but to each their own.

Thx-Ace

[Breaking Waves]

look up Marvin Creamer - he went round the world (successfully, around 1984) with NO navigation instruments - no clock, no compass, nothing but his eyes and brain.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Breaking Waves

look up Marvin Creamer - he went round the world (successfully, around 1984) with NO navigation instruments - no clock, no compass, nothing but his eyes and brain.

He was in his 60's, had a very good memory, knew a lot of geography and knew a lot of way-finding lore.

Instruments are what the rest of us use to make up for mediocre memory, lack of time to learn the geography and lore.

This is not to knock his accomplishments, they were astounding, as much as Polynesian navigators.

If anybody is interested in the lore, Harold Gatty (Navigator for Willy Post when he went RTW) wrote a book with plenty of sea lore and the previously mentioned Celestial method that only used a watch. Name of the book was "The Liferaft Book". Book was produced during WWII specifically to go into liferafts, hence the title.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Adelie

He was in his 60's, had a very good memory, knew a lot of geography and knew a lot of way-finding lore.

Instruments are what the rest of us use to make up for mediocre memory, lack of time to learn the geography and lore...

-Tinfoil hat trigger warning-
Some very interesting research has been done over the years on peoples' innate sense (or not) of direction based on magnetic fields (not to mention other topographic mental faculties of varying ability).

For some context, dogs have been found to predominantly relieve themselves facing N/S when ambient magnetic fields are stable, while at least certain birds navigate using principles of quantum entanglement.

One older study in humans (?1980s in UK) found that people could be blindfolded, driven about, and have a >50% chance of pointing towards home (or somesuch). More recently folks were placed in a Faraday cage whereupon fields were introduced to replicate Earth's fields, wherein EEG/brainwave changes were reliable induced.

What all this (and other) research suggests is that some of people will excel in navigation for reasons they will never understand. Not just, per se, that they're good with a compass and ruler and sextant, but their 'spidey sense' intuition plays a more dominant roll than they recognize...behind the scenes guiding the whole operation.

All this otherwise lends credibility that some people likely are genuinely more sensitive to EM radiation, jokes withstanding.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by Singularity

[...] some of people will excel in navigation for reasons they will never understand. Not just, per se, that they're good with a compass and ruler and sextant, but their 'spidey sense' intuition plays a more dominant roll than they recognize...behind the scenes guiding the whole operation.

I'm not that person. My sense of direction is terrible. I need GPS in my life.


I'm okay with a sextant and pretty good with a ruler. But maybe that's why I'm so interested in navigation to begin with ... I know I'll get lost.