Slawek,
I just LOOOOVE catalogues (note the CORRECT spelling, none of this US
pretend spelling!) There is only one thing better than reading some
wonderful book like Holtzapffel, or Bion, and that is a good
catalogue, paper or electronic. Paper is probably better, because I
can read them in bed. The range of stuff in somewhat peripheral (to
me at least) catalogues is amazing.
For example, for 10 years I was doing research in Antarctica. Now I
only have a minor collaboration with colleagues. One of the things
that always frustrated us was knowing how deep a lake was under up
to 3 m of permanent ice. The only was to find out was to drill a hole
(laborious) and drop down a rock on the end of a string. One of our
lakes was 180 m! A year ago, I was browsing a catalogue of hunting
and fishing gear, and there I found a depth sounder designed to work
thru ice! For ice fisher people I guess. Cheap, about $100 if memory
serves. Don't know if it would handle 3m of ice, but there may be
industrial rather than domestic units.
Back to sextants. Years ago I bought a British bubble sextant in
lovely condition, except the bubble was u/s. At the time, some
airlines still had them, so I took it to Qantas, and the chief
instrument engineer went into rhapsodies, and they completely
overhauled it and recalibrated it (with certificate) free (as an
exercise for advanced apprentices). Sad thing is that it has lost the
bubble again. One day I will send it to Celestaire.
I also bought 2 box sextants from a surplus store for $30 the pair.
Both sealed in cosmolene. I got one open and had it calibrated. NICE
TOYS!!
The sad thing is to see sextants being sold as interior decorating
items. This always strikes me as a rather degrading fate for a
wonderful instrument that represents so much development of
navigation, astronomy and instrument making. Oh well.
These days, GPS are so cheap that it is not even worth buying the
plastic Davis sextants. Ain't technology wonderful! In the five
antarctic cruises I did in the last few years as a tourist guide, I
didn't see a single sextant on the Russian icebreakers. Just a bank
of GPSs, and most of us guides had them as well. I suppose that
sextants are not even taught in naval academys anymore. Gone the way
of slide rules (I still have both mine, plus my grandfather's) and
log tables.
For a long time, I subscribes to Christies auction catalogues for
instruments. WOW! Lovely stuff, but the personal budget couldn't
afford it. I was just dreaming. But nice dreams. I know that I will
never have the skills to emulate the old workshops, but it is great
fun turning good metal into swarf!
Keep the economy growing, get catalogues, drool, and get out the old
plastic! Your government needs a strong economy!
Cheers, John
Dr John Pickard
Senior Lecturer, Environmental Planning
Graduate School of the Environment
Macquarie University, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone + 61 2 9850 7981 (work)
+ 61 2 9482 8647 (home)
Fax + 61 2 9850 7972 (work)
