Next message: Frank Reed: "Lunars aboard a Schooner -- 1823"
Bruce S wrote:
"Now I'm asking you to take a closer look at that method in Moore you
attribute to Rios. You'll find it to be a version of Lions, not Rios. Moreover, it
has, as I recall, three of those "embarrassing cases." Good method, though. I
was using it fairly often, up to a quarter century ago. "
No doubt we're talking about different editions of Moore. The edition which
Blunt re-published c.1800 (with Bowditch consulting at first) listed the method
of Mendoza Rios as the first method. By 1820, MR's method has been pushed to
second place. Bowditch's First Method at this point is a re-working of MR's
method with special tables prepared to cut the workload somewhat. The method of
Mendoza Rios preceded Bowditch's method by about a decade. Bowditch was
working FROM Mendoza Rios, not the other way around.
Here's an example from 1796 showing the method of Mendoza Rios worked by Don
Jose himself:
http://www.historicalatlas.com/lunars/myr1796.gif
(a Spaniard living in England writing in French...)
By the way, I would love to hear more about your experiences with lunars from
25 years ago. I was "just a kid" back then and I tried lunars once (without
much success) and had no one to discuss them with. Before you developed your
own method (which has received rave reviews, I would add, for those new to the
lunars talk), which techniques did you try?
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
