How to Use Plastic Sextants, by David Burch-2010 - David F. Burch [2010, PDF]

How to Use Plastic Sextants, by David Burch-2010

Year: 2010
Language: English
Author: David F. Burch
Genre: Study Guide
Publisher: Starpath Publications
Format: PDF
Quality: eBook
Number of pages: 155
Description: This small book started out as an even smaller booklet on plastic sextants alone. It concentrated on the nuances of plastic sextants and procedures we can use to overcome their inherent limitations in accuracy. It became clear fairly quickly, however, that the methods we are forced to use in plastic sextants to obtain practicable results are the same methods we could use to enhance our accuracy with metal sextants. So after continually directing our readers and students of metal sextants to the “Plastic Sextants Book” for optimizing their sights, we simply expand the name of the book and carry on—now somewhat less incongruously.
The focus is still on plastic sextants, because they present the biggest challenges. If you master their use, you will be even better with a metal sextant in your hand. It will always be obvious how to adapt ideas and procedures described for plastic sextants to the use of metal ones.
To broaden the topic to all sextants, we have adopted parts of our celestial navigation text directly related to sextants and sight taking, and included them here as well. But this book is not intended to teach celestial navigation. We assume the reader is already knowledgeable in celestial navigation or in the process of learning it from other sources.
We have also fine-tuned some of our plastic sextant use recommendations from earlier writing with the intention of pressing their use to even higher standards. The results are encouraging.
For plastic or metal, we are concentrating on details. If you want to do your best, the answers are all in the details. On the other hand, if you want to get started right away, here are the key points: treat plastic sextants as if they cost more than metal sextants do, and handle them gently, during and after the sights. Skim though Part 1 and read the section in Part 2 on Taking Sights, then start taking sights. Be sure to record all aspects of your sight taking sessions. The more sights you take, the more you can appreciate the importance of the details. You will see your results improve as you incorporate them into your “standard procedures.