Freiberger sextant (fwd)
Subject: Freiberger sextant (fwd)
From: neil (wa4chq@XXX.XXX)
Date: Mon Nov 05 2001 - 17:16:22 EST
Hello-
Just joined the group. My name is Neil and live on Gwynn's Island in
Virginia. Own and sail a Nicholson 32. I have 2 sextants, an old
Leupold (which I have used off and on for the past 15 years) issued to
the MM during wwII and one that I just purchased off of Ebay, a
Freiberger made around the mid 70's. I went for a weekend cruise which
gave me a chance to try the new sextant. I did an index mirror
perpendicularity check. It looked fine, checked for side error and it
too looked ok. I did not do a collimation check until I got home, and
it was just a rough check. I am concerned that it may be off. I will
come back to this in a moment.
Saturday in the bay, I checked for index error, then took a morning
shot. I only took one. My LOP was .8 nm from my DR so I felt good
about the sextant. Sunday I decided to shoot a series of sights and
the first 3, my LOP was off between 4 and 12 nm! I took the Leupold
out, made a shot, LOP was .5nm from DR, tried again with the Freiberger
and it was off again by many miles.
Back home, I did the basic collimation and just wonder if the
reflection of the telescope should be smack dab in the center of the
mirror? I believe it is supposed to be. The reflection I see when the
scale is set to zero is centered top to bottom but not side to side, it
is over to the left. Could this cause the error I have. Is there an
adjustment to correct this without taking it to a professional? I am
going to do more testing in the mean time.
Thanks-
Neil
