And from our own archives...
As you get yourself in touch with traditional ocean navigation techniques from the Age of Discovery, you will discover — to your surprise — that you also start to understand how David Thompson was able to survey and map western Canada. One of our planned sights will be of the moon, which — because it will rise before midnight, and thus be too far south for our view over the lake at 5:30 AM — we will measure using an artificial horizon...just like David Thompson.
When Thompson set out across the Canadian prairies, they were to Europeans as trackless and vast as the North Pacific Ocean. The only way TO navigate was by sextant.
Using an artifical horizon during the course will have the added benefit of showing you
a technique you can use to hone and polish your sextant skills
from your own living room, far from the sea, in the depths of
winter. Your instructor, Bob Goethe, has used sights out his
living room window to fine-tune his sextant skills...and frankly, to just have FUN on a cold
January day, shooting the sun, or night, shooting
Jupiter.
Our artificial horizons will use water rather than
mercury: it is cheaper and doesn't lead to heavy metal poisoning
and the loss of neurons. And unlike mercury, water is of no use in constructing IEDs. So you can get as much as you like without ending up on a no-fly list.
And from our own archives...