Anybody used a sun compass?

[Falstaff]

For a bit of fun I was looking for steam punk type devices that actually exist. There it was, a complicated looking thing in brass, a non magnetic navigation compass using the sun and latitude. Nothing to do with a nautical sextant.
I emerged from the internet rabbit hole a couple of hours later totally blown away, not only was it real and worked, but was a significant accurate Nav and mapping tool.

It was refined and used by the Long Range Desert Group to get SAS teams to where they needed to be. Also is/or was, the basis for a lot of USA mapping because it is more accurate and not affected by large iron deposits/mountains. Further down the rabbit hole, also showed how navigation and poor shipboard practices caused the position errors given when the Titanic sank.

So has anybody any experience of actually using one, or even seen it in use?

 

[Pattree]

No but I’ve used my watch as a compass to find south:
Point the hour hand at the sun and divide the angle between it and twelve in half. The halfway line is pointing south. Adjust for Bloody Supid Time.

The big problem with the system is that you need the sun.

 

[TeeDee]

Maybe of some use - https://bushcraftuk.com/community/threads/sextant.167486/

 

[demented dale]

For a bit of fun I was looking for steam punk type devices that actually exist. There it was, a complicated looking thing in brass, a non magnetic navigation compass using the sun and latitude. Nothing to do with a nautical sextant.
I emerged from the internet rabbit hole a couple of hours later totally blown away, not only was it real and worked, but was a significant accurate Nav and mapping tool.

It was refined and used by the Long Range Desert Group to get SAS teams to where they needed to be. Also is/or was, the basis for a lot of USA mapping because it is more accurate and not affected by large iron deposits/mountains. Further down the rabbit hole, also showed how navigation and poor shipboard practices caused the position errors given when the Titanic sank.

So has anybody any experience of actually using one, or even seen it in use?

No point in one of them in Ireland. Is there one that can utilize relentless rain?

 

[demented dale]

For a bit of fun I was looking for steam punk type devices that actually exist. There it was, a complicated looking thing in brass, a non magnetic navigation compass using the sun and latitude. Nothing to do with a nautical sextant.
I emerged from the internet rabbit hole a couple of hours later totally blown away, not only was it real and worked, but was a significant accurate Nav and mapping tool.

It was refined and used by the Long Range Desert Group to get SAS teams to where they needed to be. Also is/or was, the basis for a lot of USA mapping because it is more accurate and not affected by large iron deposits/mountains. Further down the rabbit hole, also showed how navigation and poor shipboard practices caused the position errors given when the Titanic sank.

So has anybody any experience of actually using one, or even seen it in use?

Burt's solar compass - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Falstaff]

Ha! Sent me off down another rabbit hole about slide rules. My class must have been one of the last that had to buy and be taught how to use a slide rule. I still have it but have forgotten how to use it.

We also used Comptrollers - a desk-based mechanical add/subtract machine, based I think on the Cruk drum calculator Seagull refers to. Looked like a cross between shop till and a typewriter. Like typing pools, big firms had comptroller pools of girls (no boys allowed).
It seems when I was still at school history was being made, and there was a step change in methods of caclulating. Use of slide rules and Compt's went in the bin, with the invention of the Hewlett Packard scientific calculator and the Texas Instruments cheaper version. By the last year in school we all had bought cheap texas instruments pocket calculators.

 

[Falstaff]

No point in one of them in Ireland. Is there one that can utilize relentless rain?

Apparently a sunstone compass still works : https://albert-lefloch.over-blog.com/article-viking-sunstone-87883291.html. Thanks to Wayland for this interesting link.

 

[neoaliphant]

Living Anachronism on youtube did a review of sunstone last year, that was for his fantasy ranger kit...

 

[demented dale]

Apparently a sunstone compass still works : https://albert-lefloch.over-blog.com/article-viking-sunstone-87883291.html. Thanks to Wayland for this interesting link.

They are all well and good but can you get a portable version?

 

[neoaliphant]

They are all well and good but can you get a portable version?

Yes, possibly from a crystal shop....

 

[bearbait]

Richard Graves' Bushcraft book has a couple of sections on the use of the Sun Clock / Sun Compass, including instructions on how to construct one.

Abrams, Bagnold, Cole and Howard are all makes of Sun Compass that I've come across.

This is one that I produced for the N Hemisphere from Graves' instructions. I've not used it as a compass but it does give a reasonably accurate Zone Time when the time reading given is adjusted for Longitude and the Equation of Time. Funnily enough I was planning to get a copy laminated and try it as a compass whilst out in the nearby mountains.

 

[Pattree]

Like typing pools, big firms had comptroller pools of girls (no boys allowed).

We used to call them comptometers. We recruited young women by sending the short list from the ground floor to finance in the 4th. Those that arrived in the right floor were interviewed.

On of my early working memories was the thunder of the comps. I have no idea how they worked or were used. There was a complete row of each number from 1 to 0 and they were powered by mains electricity via purple textile covered cables. They girls used them one handed while turning pages of accounts.

 

[Falstaff]

They are all well and good but can you get a portable version?

That Albert lefloch one is a very portable one, a very clever new design. I'd love to have one of those.

 

[Falstaff]

We used to call them comptometers. We recruited young women by sending the short list from the ground floor to finance in the 4th. Those that arrived in the right floor were interviewed.

On of my early working memories was the thunder of the comps. I have no idea how they worked or were used. There was a complete row of each number from 1 to 0 and they were powered by mains electricity via purple textile covered cables. They girls used them one handed while turning pages of accounts.

I did n't know they did electric ones, the ones at school were hand cranked. They work on basically the same principle as an Abacus. Each ring is a base 10 divisor - singles, tenths, hundreds thou's etc. You enter the number, crank it forward and enter the next number and crank it forward again. (or back for subtraction). When each ring gets to 0/10 it flicks the next ring on one place.
I heard that many of the chinese provincial banks were still using abacus operators as they were faster and less keying errors than computers.

 

[Falstaff]

Richard Graves' Bushcraft book has a couple of sections on the use of the Sun Clock / Sun Compass, including instructions on how to construct one.

Abrams, Bagnold, Cole and Howard are all makes of Sun Compass that I've come across.

This is one that I produced for the N Hemisphere from Graves' instructions. I've not used it as a compass but it does give a reasonably accurate Zone Time when the time reading given is adjusted for Longitude and....

Brill! That's a really clever one you've prduced there, no idea how its done.
Think you should laminate one and test it. Link to a Bagnold hand held sun compass you might be able to copy. Normally they were bolted to the landrover, and you took a reading every 10 mins using the Davis tables (which appear to be discontinued now).

 

[Falstaff]

They are all well and good but can you get a portable version?

Not a sun stone but this is a pretty interesting and usable version of what clever Bearbait has done in the southern hemisphere. I wouldn't know how to start to make one, might could easily use one of these. Think I might try to buy one if they ar still in stock.

 

[ONE]

Have one (Military Howard II Pattern). I clearly remember searching for and finding the "tables" for it being one of the first practical things I ever did on the internet, so about '93-ish.

And that was as far as it went.

 

[Seagull]

Cheers, Bearbait...for raising the Analemma diagram...a really interesting bit of kit, and still being talked about on various Cel-Nav sites.
Regards all
Ceeg

 

[Falstaff]

Links in my previous comments didn't go in:

Handheld Bagnold sun compass

https://www.livescience.com/16831-viking-sunstone-crystal-compass.html Portable new form of Sunstone compass.

 

[Falstaff]

Have one (Military Howard II Pattern). I clearly remember searching for and finding the "tables" for it being one of the first practical things I ever did on the internet, so about '93-ish.

And that was as far as it went.

Wow! Have you still got it? Give it a whirl or see if someone like Seagull or Bearbait, who understand these things, can help or try it. Why did it have 6 sticks, was that to allow for losing/bending some?