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Carry on, Mr. Bowditch

Subject: Carry on, Mr. Bowditch
From: David Weilacher (daveweilacher@XXX.XXX)
Date: Wed Jan 15 2003 - 13:51:34 EST

I just finished reading this fictionalized biography about Nathanial Bowditch.

It leads me to believe that chronometers were prohibitively expensive into the
1820's. Bacause of this, lunars were still in common use.

According to the story, until Mr. Bowditch invented the three star lunar, a
lunar consisted of waiting for a known star to occult the moon.

I understood little of this. Would anyone care to explain what this means in
detail? What purpose does a sextant serve in this 'occulting' lunar process.

It also went on about a star had to be below the moon and not above it for
this procedure to work. (I may remember this backwards)

A problem with fictionalized biographies is telling where the bio stops and
the fiction starts.

Dave Weilacher
.US Coast Guard licensed captain
. #889968
.ASA Instructor Evaluator & Celestial
. Nav. Instructor #990800
.IBM AS400 RPG contract programmer



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