Talk:Lunar distance (navigation)

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Tried to explain this back in November but had it deleted by someone who simply proclaimed that they couldn't understand it. Hopefully this works better!

Apologies. I know how you feal - I've had it done to me!

After I read the article it took me a while to work out what it must have been saying, and when I finally worked it out, the explanation was so different I couldn't just edit it!

I see you didn't massacre my own contribution, so hopefully it has helped.

I've read what you've added ... I'll reword a bit about the 15 degree west because it isn't immediately obvious that this is an hour unless you already know the subject! It's really quite a difficult subject to put in a few words. It really needs a few people to read it and see if it makes sense!

Mike 11:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

PS. I've remembered why I came here - it was to do with the error - having worked out the rough error I put in that section, which I thought would be useful, but I'm not too concerned if it disappears!Mike 12:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additions to article (was thanks)

PPS. Thanks for the article, I remember a TV program on "Longitude", where it simple asked the audience to laugh at another approach to working out position. Now that I understand the technique it explains not only what the other approach was, but a lot of history such as why they built observatories on remote islands - it was to create a realiable and accurate local fixed reference point from which they could then work out the exact position of other local points using much less accurate equipment so long as it was calibrated to the known reference point!

I presume that is also why they were so interested in solar eclipses. I assume they could calculate the time of the eclipse much more accurately than their time pieces could measure time, therefore using an eclipse, they would have a very accurate local time reference from which, using the moon's position they could then very accurately determine the longitude of the observatory .... it all makes sense because of this article! Mike 12:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)