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Peanut said:
“Finding your way without Map or Compass” by Harold Gatty
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Thanks for the heads up on that book. I missed your original post on it several years ago. I shall investigate this one. Sounds very interesting and useful.

I like all things navigation. The people around here look at me and my friend all crazy. We're sitting out in the park taking sun shots with the sextant (using an artificial horizon) and plotting our location. We couldn't be farther from a ship or the ocean here in Colorado, so two old dudes with a sextant is not a sight you see too often.
 
Gatty was hired by the US Army Air Corp in ww2. He wrote the survival manual/booklet given to all air crews during the war.

His 1958 book is amazing, dozens and dozens of ways that flora and fauna signal directions. I don't spend time at sea anymore so can't test out those techniques but the land based methods I use often. It's not difficult to adapt the plants, animals and birds he uses as examples, to the ones that live in my area.
 
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Haertig said:
We're sitting out in the park taking sun shots with the sextant (using an artificial horizon) and plotting our location. We couldn't be farther from a ship or the ocean here in Colorado, so two old dudes with a sextant is not a sight you see too often.
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And here I thought I was the only nutcase with a sextant 100's of miles from an ocean.

No wonder I like it here.
 
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Peanut said:
Does it count if I've shopped for a sextant? 😁 Didn't know enough to make an informed choice so I didn't buy any of the ones I saw.
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Yes it counts.

I nabbed a pair from harbor freight that were crude but could used in tandem for triangulating range and direction. Properly calibrated, even a crude instrument will work.

Ben
 
Peanut said:
Does it count if I've shopped for a sextant? 😁 Didn't know enough to make an informed choice so I didn't buy any of the ones I saw.
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This one is probably the best bang for the buck if you actually plan to do real navigation with it (this is the one my friend and I use - he owns it, not me):
https://www.celestaire.com/product/astra-iiib-sextant/
If you want to learn, this is a good choice (you can also navigate with it):
https://www.celestaire.com/product/davis-mark-15-sextant/
If you don't want to spend any money and just do some basic learning of the concepts:
https://www.celestaire.com/product/davis-mark-3-sextant/
If you're richer than snot and want to impress others (but not navigate any better than with the Astra IIIb):
https://www.celestaire.com/product/tamaya-jupiter-sextant/
p.s. - If you just want to learn, you don't have to buy a sextant. You can work problems from a book, and just use the sights they give you. You don't have to take your own sightings (what the sextant is used for). For those that don't know, you don't just look through a sextant and it tells you where you are. You take multiple sightings and then lookup numbers in tables, calculate things, do more lookups, plot lines on special paper, etc. Taking sights may take you a few minutes. Doing the work afterwards to reduce those sights to a location takes much longer. You need an almanac (changes yearly) and sight reduction tables. Then you need drawing/plotting tools.

p.p.s. - A "sight" is a precise measurement of the angle to a specific celestial body (sun, moon, specific star) from the horizon, at a precise time (down to the second). That's why sextants are used at sea - the ocean is the perfect horizon. On land, you don't have a perfect horizon, because of hills, etc. On land, you use what is called an "artificial horizon". A sextant is nothing more than a tool to measure a precise angle. That's it.
 
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What is that animal.......???
 
I thought this chimney looked cool. It had been the one room cabin then became a small country store. I had stopped to talk to a guy about a truck. His grandparents had lived there... He didn't offer to let me look inside..

Old house ( 1)_v1.jpg


@dademoss @Haertig thanks for the links, must have missed your posts. I'm not going to spend a thousand bucks on a sextant but it'd be nice to have something usable. Funny, last year I was out looking for medicinals, several miles from the nearest paved road and quite a walk into the woods... I found a sail boat!

Of all the things I expected to find that day, miles from a house... a sailboat wasn't in the top 10,000! It was bizarre!

Goes to show... never know when you might need a sextant! 🤣


Boat (1) sm.JPG
 
Patchouli said:
@Sourdough I think it is a regular tabby striper and she has turned her head and is looking up at the chimney, at least that's what it looks like to me.
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If so that is a small head for such a large body. The body seems more like a Bobcat.
 
Guess I am just not seeing it. I assume those two white spots are the front feet.
 
Peanut said:
I thought this chimney looked cool. It had been the one room cabin then became a small country store. I had stopped to talk to a guy about a truck. His grandparents had lived there... He didn't offer to let me look inside..
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That chimney is cool.
People lived in such small homes and thought nothing of it. They were doing the best they could, working hard to survive and prosper. 12 x 12 shanties were common on homesteads.
 
Patchouli said:
@Sourdough The lighter color, buffy color tan, low on the cat, the right side is the ankle and lower leg area and the left side is the rear leg area. At least that's what I see.
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I see the head looking up towards the top of the chimney. But I can't make out the body. O'Well........I need to get into my sleeping bag
 
Peanut said:
I thought this chimney looked cool. It had been the one room cabin then became a small country store. I had stopped to talk to a guy about a truck. His grandparents had lived there... He didn't offer to let me look inside..

View attachment 82751

@dademoss @Haertig thanks for the links, must have missed your posts. I'm not going to spend a thousand bucks on a sextant but it'd be nice to have something usable. Funny, last year I was out looking for medicinals, several miles from the nearest paved road and quite a walk into the woods... I found a sail boat!

Of all the things I expected to find that day, miles from a house... a sailboat wasn't in the top 10,000! It was bizarre!

Goes to show... never know when you might need a sextant! 🤣


View attachment 82752
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Dry-stacked~ it's one of those dying arts and is seldom seen today. I love it!
 
Bacpacker said:
Wonder how that would work in Winter? Be awesome to have one on the porch though
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The chimney looks very deep like it's two separate chimneys combined to one, and the fireplaces are separate, not one big one.
 
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