How to make a sextant

Tie one end of a string to the center of the protractor. While I am a land locked sailor mostly confined to Michigans inland lakes navigating the.

Rick writes A simple how to making a serious scientific instrument A sextant.

How to make a sextant. Sight the object along the edge of the sextant ruler to determine its altitude. Record the angle indicated by the plumb line. Using the data chart record the date and time of the observation.

Keep a log for several weeks time to emphasize the celestial object s motion. Observation Date 22 -09 -1998 Time. Before you go out to look at the stars hack together a simple sextant from supplies you have sitting around your house.

It wont rival Google Maps but even a bare-bones sextant like this one can. How To Build A Homemade SextantYou will needScissorsProtractora 4x 6 note card w linesa straw at least 6 wo bendtapea jumbo paper clipand pen. Think of a sextant with a normal vernier to read the minutes of arc at the bottom of the index arm.

Now cut gear teeth along the bottom of the arc of the sextant and add a threaded wheel like a worm wheel perpendicular to the teeth. This is the micrometer section of the name. Make a hole on sextant and attach thread then tie the thread with nut.

Then decorate the sextant if you like. At the second side of sextant attach your mobile cover with the help of glue. Attach your phone to the cover and your digital and manual sextant is ready.

A Sextant is a currency item that can be used on a Watchstone to add a special modifier to all the maps on the region where the Watchstone is socketed. This means that each region can be affected by up to four sextants at any one time. This effect will be applied to all the maps in that region.

The first link is for a very simple sextant made from common stuff. CD sextant project The next one is a little more complex. XTant project The last one is a much more complex project to build a micrometer vernier sextant.

Unfortunately the site is hosted on geocities so youll get their usual popups and other advertising garbage. Oh well the site has interesting content. Clamp the index arm in place with the flip-lock then turn the micrometer knob to fine-tune the sextant so the object is perfectly aligned with the horizon.

Record the time you made your sighting in hours minutes and seconds then record the angle measure which you can find on the index bar and correct for your elevation if necessary. How a Sextant Works Theres nothing mystical or complicated about a sextant. All it is is a device that measures the angle between two objects.

The sextant makes use of two mirrors. These can include practice and bubble horizons for practicing and using a sextant without a horizon sight tubes polarizing filters astigmatizers to turn a stars pinprick of light into a line of light calibrating devices brackets to attach timing devices bearing compasses and night-vision devices. A sextant is an instrument generally used to measure the altitude of a celestial object above the horizon.

Making this measurement is known as sighting the object shooting the object or taking a sight. The angle and the time when it was measured can be used to calculate a position line on a nautical or aeronautical chart. 3 Position the scale on the CD use the data side making sure the scale is perfectly centered.

Rick writes A simple how to making a serious scientific instrument A sextant. Make it and learn how to navigate Make it and learn how to navigate Link Link. Sextant is an instrument to measure angles used in celestial navigation.

This DIY instrument is simple to build. Just paper foamboard mirrors and Lego bricks. This is my second navigation instrument project t.

To measure the suns altitude stand facing the sun with the sextant in your right hand. With your left hand on the index arm look through the eyepiece at the horizon and move the index arm until the sun is visible through the two mirrors and index shades. Rock the entire sextant from side to side so that the suns image travels in a half-arc.

There are two kinds of minute scales used in sextants. Modern sextants use a drum to trim the instrument and read the minutes. One full turn of this drum equals one degree or 60.

This device requires sophisticated machining to build. The CD-Sextant uses a vernier scale a simpler but useful minute scale type. Since the CD-Sextant degrees are small due to the small CD radius I used a single 60 vernier larger sextants.

Now to rig up a sextant. You need length of something rigid and straight. Tie two of these lengths together at one end so that they are at right angles to each other.

The horizontal length point to the horizon while the vertical length points straight up at the sky. Tie the third length to these two pieces to make a right angled triangle. You can calculate the relative position of stars and planets using just a few household items.

A sextant is a fun thing to build and getting a precise reading from your own instrument is great. - - - - - x- - - - Sextant Field Test. I did some tests comparing the same vertical angles measured by 3 different instruments.

A Kern theodolite. A Davis MK15 plastic sextant. How to Use your Sextant.

Look through the straw of your sextant and locate an object above your head. Once youve found the object keep the string in place along the protractor by placing your finger over it to stop the string from moving. From the duckworks archives by Paul C.

Now that the stars are out later in the morning and the boats are all put away its time to think of winter projects that will keep us busy. While I am a land locked sailor mostly confined to Michigans inland lakes navigating the. A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects.

The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation. The estimation of this angle the altitude is known as sighting or shooting the object or taking a sight. Make sure you tie it the way it is tied in figure A and not the way it is tied in figure B.

If you tie it the way it is tied in figure B your sextant will be inaccurate. It is also a good idea to cut a very tiny groove at the top of the protractor to fit the fishing line into. How do you make a simple sextant.

Instructions Tape a drinking straw to the bottom edge of a protractor. Tie one end of a string to the center of the protractor. One the other end of the string tie a steel washer or other mass.

Locate the North Star through the straw. Look up the.