(04-04-2017, 11:23 AM)P.Rutherford Wrote: Bigbill,
Do you use the recording drum on the A12? I know there is one but I've never known how they work.
Paul.
I don't. In fact I remove it since it falls off easily and chips.
The drum was intended to mark multiple sightings of the same body in a short time allowing you to go back later and average them. There is a pencil lead on the sextant that you press to do this. Normally there are 2 or 3 drums so you can take your sightings on different bodies at the same time using a different drum for each. You would have to have the index set at a known start point, later you put the drum back on and rotate it until the pencil lines match up and read each sight off the index.
I just skip the drum and record each sight individually without averaging.
Bill
I used to be a normal person, then I discovered how to locate myself on this planet using a star.