Re: Sextant Accuracy and anomalous dip
Subject: Re: Sextant Accuracy and anomalous dip
From: Fred Hebard (Fred@XXX.XXX)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 22:18:16 EST
Bruce raises the intriguing point that the people who established the
cable station could get time over the wire to establish its location.
However, why couldn't the repair ship do the same? Surely the time of
the captain and first officer over a half day to a whole day was more
valuable than a few time transmissions. I hazard that the delays in
propagating a signal were unknown enough that accurate time could not
be transmitted long distance.
This leads us back to Jared's question, where they did seem to be
establishing their observatory in a random spot. However, perhaps it
wasn't too difficult to measure the distance to a known spot in the
vicinity, or perhaps the spots were known and had been located by
observing the moons of Jupiter or some such.
Fred Hebard
