Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

One of the mqin characters when describing a navigational aid, uses the term-noon. If I'm not mistaken the vikings didnt have clocks, and ship board clocks (chronometers) werent invented until the 18th century.

Posted

The word noon is derived from Latin nona hora, the ninth hour of the day, and is related to the liturgical term none. The Roman and Western European medieval monastic day began at 6:00 a.m. (06:00) by modern timekeeping, so the ninth hour started at what is now 3:00 p.m. (15:00). In English, the meaning of the word shifted to midday and the time gradually moved back to 12:00. The change began in the twelfth century and was fixed by the fourteenth century.[2]

Posted

One of the mqin characters when describing a navigational aid, uses the term-noon. If I'm not mistaken the vikings didnt have clocks, and ship board clocks (chronometers) werent invented until the 18th century.

 

Regardless of the "time", I wonder if they still used the term (or an analogous term) to indicate the sun at its zenith.

Posted

 

 

Regardless of the "time", I wonder if they still used the term (or an analogous term) to indicate the sun at its zenith.

 

Yes they did, because the navigational aid involved the shortening of a shadow due to the sun's position

Posted

Did they have sextants? One can take local time from the angle of the sun. No?

 

no sextants till 1731

Posted

 

 

Thanks... Just looked it up! Was gonna edit my post... Didn't know it was that late... Heck, chronometers were that much later with the longitude question...

 

Yes, took a heck of a long time to get over that pendulum thing.

 

I wonder when the first documented nooner was.

 

sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight

Posted

One of the mqin characters when describing a navigational aid, uses the term-noon. If I'm not mistaken the vikings didnt have clocks, and ship board clocks (chronometers) werent invented until the 18th century.

 

Though I doubt the Vikings called it "noon", it's easy enough to approximate local noon in general just by watching the sun. And that much will let an experienced navigator (such as a Viking) make a rough approximation of latitude.

 

Longitude...without a clock and a sextant, you're basically screwed.

×
×
  • Create New...