On Sat 2019-11-23T09:29:09+0100 Jean-Louis Rault hath writ: > I'm wondering why the largest hand is used for minutes, and the smaller > hands for hours and seconds
If the purpose of the clock was to determine what time it was from an astronomical observation then a second hand was not sufficient. Determining the clock offset required some sort of graphical marking of seconds that could be reviewed after the fact. If the purpose of the clock was marking the begin and end of exposure of a photographic plate then seconds were not very important, and the hour was something that could be kept in the observer's head while marking the log book, and in the dark the big minute hand was a big help to a lone observer whose hands and nose were freezing while guiding the telescope by eye and slewing it to the next target by hand. -- Steve Allen <[email protected]> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB 260 Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
