Re: [Paddlewise] Longitude and astronomy

From: Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:20:15 -0700
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:49 AM, PeterO <rebyl_kayak_at_energysustained.com>wrote:

>
> ............It looks as if Cook might have used a process such as
> recalibrating his clock for local time every day against sunrise, sunset
> and
> noon. The clock would then only have to remain within spec for 24 hours AND
> MEASURE LOCAL TIME and not for months or years to maintain synchronism with
> Greenwich. Presumably there were enough stars visible in both the southern
> and northern hemispheres so that Cook in Australia could use the tables
> developed at Greenwich TO TRY OUT THE LUNAR METHOD...........
>
> Thinking this over, the ancient Pacific navigators could have used very
much the same system using a sand-clock calibrated for 24 hours. Accuracy
would not have been so great but then they would at least have had some
measure of local time.


Craig
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Received on Fri Jul 30 2010 - 09:20:29 PDT

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