Nav mod - Your thoughts on almanacs

[vanjast]

Hi all, I'm back in the land of Noddy. On my trip I picked up a fair amount of info on the local Lighthouses for those who are interested - I'll post this later. A few pics.
Cape Columbine lighthouse - 1936
http:///www.vanjast.com/SH3Pics/CapeColumbine.JPG

It's lens. the poor lighthouse guy was so happy to have us visiting. When I asked him if he had a book/brochure/info on all the lighthouses in ZA.. he nearly fell over backwards, but quickly pulled out an excellent booklet, which I've already scanned.
http:///www.vanjast.com/SH3Pics/ColumbineLens.JPG

and another around the corner - StompNeus Bay.
http:///www.vanjast.com/SH3Pics/StompNeusBay.JPG


Ah! back to the original story of this post... The Almanac ??
I've been going over this and have come across a problem with the MoonRise/Set almanac -> It's Beeg, very big. the Sun almanac(39-45) is 20 pages, whereas the moon could be a 100 pages.... So I propose this idea and you can tell me what you think.

While taking navigation readings, which are more than likely only to occur at time minimum of hour intervals, would you object to running a small almanac program in the background, behind SH3 that one Alt-Tabs to get the data. The program will just reference a table of dates and times ??

Thanks for the input
KF
:)

[_Seth_]

No problems with alt + tab, mate! I often use an intercept calculator this way, to double check sailed distance + torpedo run times. Go for it! :up:

Nice pictures, mate!:up::up:

[Georg_Unterberg]

vanjast,

read your nav-thread a few days ago. I'm really looking forward to your real-navigation-mod!
Using a sextant to get the boat position in SHIII is an excellent idea.
But I wonder: Are the sun, moon & star positions modelled correctly in SHIII - correct enough to get accuracy of maybe a few arcminutes?
Another point is sun and moon: I've seen nearly all sizes of sun & moon in SHIII - from very big fireball to tiny dot in the sky. It seems to have something to do with graphics card & anti aliasing. The big fireball I see now is no good for sun measurements cause always I see a sun glare - it's hard to get the edge of the sun, I think incorporating a filter like in real sextants would be impossible?

The moon has similar problems - in GWX we have often a big ball, don't know how good the accuracy is here.

Regarding almanac program: That's a good idea! IMHO it can run in background. If you press escape before alt-tabbing out to the almanac prog, it should not lead to a CTD. Where did you get the almanac for 1939-45?

fantastic idea, nonetheless!!

[Werewolf]

WAUW! Go for it! This is my dream of a sim, I've always been annoyed by the fact that navigation is never modelled :D I would'nt mind having to run that extra program

[Zinmar]

Unfortunately I can't use that. Everytime I Alt-Tab my system crashes to the desk.

[vanjast]

I'm doing my testing with NYGM2.2 installed...

I see that the different sizes of the sun/moon might make a difference - I have to check this. Another way around this is to mark the poistion of the sun/moon according to the almanac and always use this 'position' for rise/set times.

The almanac program is a freebee. I'll post the link later (I'm at work). You can get rise/set times for any year from 3000BC to 3000AD I think (will check) it is. I tried these times with SH3 at various longtitude/Latitudes and found SH3 to match very close.

With the ALt-Tab story one can also hit the system-key, which takes you to the desktop. Check to see if this does not give you a CTD - if not one can access the Almanc proggie fro here ??

:D

[JohnnyBlaze]

Unfortunately I can't use that. Everytime I Alt-Tab my system crashes to the desk.
Is it out of the question to run your SH3 in window mode?
Just a suggestion