The sextant is comparable to a hand saw and chisel these days, but as pointed out, the use and study of celestial nav allows one to understand the whole concept of nav with celestial objects, which is the basis of GPS. In the case of GPS, the celestial objects are manmade satellites.RonWild CheriC&C 30STL
--- On Sun, 1/27/13, Antoine Rose <antoine.r...@videotron.ca> wrote: From: Antoine Rose <antoine.r...@videotron.ca> Subject: Re: Stus-List Sextant To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Date: Sunday, January 27, 2013, 9:43 PM Hi Chuck,You're absolutely right, sextant will eventually be seen only in museums. A good fix with a sextant will give you a position within half a mile margin of error, if all goes very well. One have to wait four hours between two fixes (one in the morning followed by the one in the afternoon with an optional noon fix). None of that compare to the precision of a GPS. In my crossings, I had three GPS (handheld, one connected to the laptop and the AIS). The sextant was really to have fun and practice during leisure time.Having learned the hard way thirty years ago how to navigate in fog and currents on the St-Lawrence River with only a deep-sounder and a compass, I'm not interested in going back. However, learning how to use a sextant gives you more than a position, it gives you knowledge of how celestial and earth movements intersect and also gives you a deeper appreciation for our predecessors. Even if it's only about intellectual curiosity, I feel it's worth it.The Astra IIIb is supposed to be a fine and affordable sextant. Actually, if you look at it, it looks very much like a chinese copy of the Cassens & Plath. I personally have two Freiberger, mostly because I tend to collect beautiful nautical objects. Antoine (C&C 30 Cousin)
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