Re:SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System (a.k.a. R2-D2) worked by...
by macintux on Monday September 25, 2023 @11:56PM
(#37654131)
I wonder, however, whether it could track stars from the ground during the day. Might well only have worked at night.
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Re:SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System (a.k.a. R2-D2) worked by...
by someplaceguy on Tuesday September 26, 2023 @12:32AM
(#37654403)
The first paragraph of page 40 says: "Stars are normally tracked before takeoff, both at night and during the day (...)".
Re:SR-71 Blackbird Astro-Nav System (a.k.a. R2-D2) worked by...
by Tommstein on Tuesday September 26, 2023 @01:27AM
(#37654818)
Now that's a money quote. The following sentence, which says that "If star tracking has not commenced before takeoff, it should start at an altitude where cloud cover and sky brightness conditions have improved.", leads one to believe that it was possible for the sky to be too bright to track stars from the ground sometimes (since it basically says exactly that), but it now seems clear ground tracking during the day was possible. Maybe it depended on the latitude, time of day, and position of the Sun relative to the stars (low latitude in the middle of the day without sufficiently bright stars far enough away from the Sun = sky too bright, higher latitude early or late in the day with sufficiently bright stars far enough away from the Sun = track from the ground, any other combination = results may vary). Actually, I just saw that the bottom of page 42 describes how to handle situations where the sky was too bright for specific stars.