All my KP trained deck officers can do celestial, it's still required for
professional sea officers, and the course work still includes lunar
distances. What's the issue? Celestial isn't all that difficult. Most of
the Bo's'ns and a good many of the experienced AB's can do celestial. Hell
.. .Ole Thom does the latitudes with his knuckles. It only wants a little
effort.

M.


"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...
KP did require (as of at least 10 years ago) and may still require
coursework
to graduate that includes Lunar Distances.

I didn't learn of chronometers or Lunar Distances by googling. I knew of
each
before google came into existence.

Chronometers were damned expensive until mid 19th century and still had
temperature compensation problems until well into the 20th century. These
problems were eventually solved with the introduction of consumer electric
watches. Lunars were still commonly used on commercial vessels (as
opposed to
military vessels) until about 150 years ago. The need for celestial nav
at all
started to go away by the early 1920's when radio navigation started to
come
online with commercial radio stations, which were required to give their
call
letters, the city of transmission and frequency every ten minutes.

not one of you guys thought to check King's Point. There may be other
places
that teach Lunar Distances, but I have never heard of which. It is a
skill
obsolete since the middle of the 19th century when chronometers because
cheap
enough to become ubiquitous.



Didn't check and won't check. If KP teaches "Lunar Distances", it will
be as an exercise in history, not as a license necessity.
BTW, it was not a question of chronometers becoming cheap enough .... it
was a question of them becoming reliable enough to be used on a
shipboard environment..... You still need to learn to do more in depth
"Google" searches, before you try to write as if you are an expert.