Time to adjust the sextant

[Guest]

I try to avoid that shop unless I have at least a day to spare

[Steve Pope 243]

shitty plastic sextants are just the thing for a back up, not 100% accurate but can be close, definitely good for learning. often some reasonably priced on Tme. also the occasional "Merlin" calculator comes up, settings should be OK till 2020.

[Guest]

Hunt down a Alpha 40. Full sized with huge mirrors and scope (a good thing) and the best bit is they are alloy so easy to hold up for a while if you have too. Had one for years and love it to bits. Build for the Chinese Navy of all things but knot at chinese quality, these are very well made. Generally cheaper than the usual as way, that's always a bonus.

 

They can be brought new from Dave Schafer in Bayswater, the legend compass and sextant local dude fella bloke. What he knows about compass's and the likes is beyond freaky, well beyond.

[rigger 47]

Found my sextant but somewhere in oall our moves the tables have been "reduced" to one out of date copy of volume one (stars). Must try boat books for vols 2 &3, even if I never use them again I feel a bit naked without them.

 

 

try

Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation

 

Sight Reduction Tables for Marine Navigation

[Guest]

Well done rigger!!!

[SloopJohnB 323]

Thanks for the link.

 

 

.... but my wireless network only reaches to end drive.

[rigger 47]

also you can get the nautical almanac free at various locations on the web

 

one version of the 2010 nautical almanac

[Guest]

I was going to print it then get the pages laminated.

[Fusion 0]

I was going to print it then get the pages laminated.

It would be cheaper to buy the book

[SloopJohnB 323]

With this all the gps satellites could be out.

 

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/dr ... dline+Feed)

[SloopJohnB 323]

Sorry guys its really time to get out the sextant, chronometer, ASR tables.

 

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... rmwarning/

 

2010 to 2012 will have massive Sun Storms and Solar flares causing massive communication malfunction and mobile phone blackouts Come the year 2010 -2012 and flares from the sun could cause a telecommunication blackout forcing mobile phones and navigational systems to go off, says a leading scientist. As 2010 approaches, more and more scientists around the world will be tuning their telescopes

towards the sun to try and detect sudden eruption of highly destructive solar flares which have the

ability to cause a "telecommunication blackout" across the globe.

"The solar flares are expected to be at its maximum intensity by the year 2010," said Markus

Aschwanden, a solar physicist at the Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, Lockheed Martin

Advanced Technology Center (LMATC) in the United States of America.

"These solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) from the sun have the ability to travel all the way to the earth and create a blackout of cellular phone services and navigational systems like the GPS (Global Positioning System)", Aschwanden said on the sidelines of an international conference on ''Challenges of Solar Cycle-24'' at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) here

[wheels 543]

I don't think we will see this in 2010 now. The Sun did a Zig when everyone thought it was going to Zag. It started to increase in activity and died again. They think the activity is on the way up now and I think it is safer to say it is. But seeing as we really have no clue, I still wouldn't betting on it. So if this is the start to the ramp up, then we are looking at a year or two later than predicted. Although I don't know why someone would come out and say year such and such is going to see X amount of activity. All that is known is that activity has started the new cycle. No one can predict when the storms occurr, let along how powerful they will be. And the guy that made that prediction should know better than that. He has a 50/50 chance. I suppose if he guess right, he becomes famous in the science professional world. If he makes the wrong guess, he will be laughed at briefly and then quickly forgotten again.