[time-nuts] Re: Ship's clocks @ The Royal Society

[Lux, Jim]

On 7/2/23 7:54 AM, Steve Allen via time-nuts wrote:
> On Sat 2023-07-01T14:48:22-0700 Brooke Clarke via time-nuts hath writ:
>> It's my understanding that the clock would need to be regulated as to it's
>> rate because of local gravity and set to the correct time prior to making
>> Venus/Sun transit measurements.  All that done by astronomy I'm guessing
>> this would be made more fool proof if sidereal time was used.
> The clock would not need to be regulated any more than a chronometer
> on board a ship was regulated.  Through the end of the 20th century
> the Navy manuals for Quartermaster said that a ship's chronometer is
> set at the maintenance shop before being carried to the ship and
> it is never reset.  The quartermaster must keep a log of how much
> the chronometer deviates from true time.
>
> For the timing of the transit the clock only needed to be regular, not
> to be correct.  The logs of the observations before and after would
> allow the transit contact times to be determined by interpolation
> using the clock and the logs of how far off that clock was in the days
> before and after the transit.


As we say in the interferometric measurement business: Knowledge not 
control.