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On A New Aircraft-Sextant for Use with Visible Horizon*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

L. Becker*
Affiliation:
Regius Professor of Astronomy in the University of Glasgow

Extract

When this instrument is in its observing position the visible horizon is reflected at three points vertically downwards into a telescope. The portions of the horizon observed are facing the observer and lie 60° to his right and left. The images of the visible horizon appear as three straight lines in the field of view intersecting at about 60°. The observation consists in bringing the image of the celestial object into a certain point defined by the configuration of the horizon-lines. It is of no consequence whether all the rays after the downward reflection are again reflected into a horizontal direction, and whether this occurs before or after the rays enter the object-glass. It will be shown below how the observer is enabled to keep the error of inclination so small that its effect on the result, of second order, can be neglected.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1933

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Footnotes

*

Reprinted from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (January, 1933, Vol. 93, No. 3) by courtesy of the Council.

References

* Reprinted from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (January, 1933, Vol. 93, No. 3) by courtesy of the Council.