Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Cross-staff   Listen
noun
Cross-staff  n.  
1.
An instrument formerly used at sea for taking the altitudes of celestial bodies.
2.
A surveyor's instrument for measuring offsets.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Cross-staff" Quotes from Famous Books



... order to determine the true motions. He began by observing a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in August, 1563, and found the Prutenic Tables several days in error, and the Alphonsine a whole month. He provided himself with a cross-staff for determining the angular distance between stars or other objects, and, finding the divisions of the scale inaccurate, constructed a table of corrections, an improvement that seems to have been a decided innovation, the previous practice having been to use the best available instrument and ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com