sextant

[ sek-stuhnt ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

an astronomical instrument used to determine latitude and longitude at sea by measuring angular distances, especially the altitudes of sun, moon, and stars.
Sextant, Astronomy. the constellation Sextans.

sextant

/ ˈsɛkstənt /

an optical instrument used in navigation and consisting of a telescope through which a sighting of a heavenly body is taken, with protractors for determining its angular distance above the horizon or from another heavenly body
a sixth part of a circle having an arc which subtends an angle of 60°

sextant

/ sĕk′stənt /

An instrument containing a graduated 60° arc and a movable pivoted arm corresponding to the radius of the arc's circle, used in celestial navigation to measure the altitude of a celestial body in order to determine the observer's latitude and longitude. A horizontally mounted telescope and two small mirrors are arranged so that the observer can, by moving the pivoted arm, sight the horizon and the reflected image of the celestial body in the same line, giving a reading along the arc that is used to look up the observer's position in a published table.

Origin of sextant¹

First recorded in 1590–1600; from Latin sextant- (stem of sextāns ) sixth part of a unit; sext ¹, -ant

Origin of sextant¹

C17: from Latin sextāns one sixth of a unit

Then, he could actually use a sextant, and his way of working out his latitude was chaste and picturesque.

A sextant for measuring the latitude of any place can be easily constructed as follows: While a board, 1 in.

I had with me an admirable Hadleys sextant, and an artificial horizon, and I corrected the mean refraction of the suns rays.

While Dick was recovering the sextant, Carl was making Townsend as comfortable as possible on the floor of the car.

By six o'clock the schooner was well out to sea, and as it grew dark the Captain came on deck with his sextant.

April 18, 2024petrichor

[pet-ri-kawr]

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