Michael Hotka's
Activity 12 - Measuring - 30 Navigation
Stars Results
Use your astrolabe and/or quadrant to measure the positions of at least 30 of the 57 navigation stars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_for_navigation) visible from your location.
If you live too far north you won’t be able to see all of the navigation stars.
Use the astrolabe/quadrant in transit mode for at least fifteen of the stars. For these fifteen stars record the local sidereal time of the observation.
For all of the stars record the data as altitude (height), azimuth (direction), date and clock time to the minute. From the alt/az data and your location calculate the right ascension and declination. You can find sidereal clock software on the Internet. You may use a compass to help measure the positions when not using the transit method. See the document “Converting Horizontal Coordinates to Equatorial Coordinates” in the Link section below.
Results
I tried to use my Jacob's Staff for this Activity but found it impossible to determine a reliable ground reference in my neighborhood that represented the actual hotizon. You can see the one measurement I tried to use the Staff for on Pollux was not even close to the correct altitude.
I decided to just used my qQuadrant and Astrloabe, which didn't depend on an accurate horizon, for this Activity.
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