10th March 2017. David Patterson, DAS. Astronomy and the art of navigation .
David discussed the developement of navigation from the very earliest explorers and traders and the primitive yet often quite effective devices they used. He showed how various civilisations were able to travel as far as the orient in one direction to the Americas in the other using very basic charts and the afforementioned navigational devices. He described devices and how they were used from the backstaff to the sextant of the middle ages to the most modern advances including Satellite navigation.
The talk was very well illustrated with slides, and after demonstrating how to use a modern sextant, allowed members to try themselves.
