Lunar Distance
The term lunatic was also used by supporters of John Harrison and his marine chronometer method of determining longitude to refer to proponents of the Method of Lunar Distances, advanced by Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne.
Later, members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham called themselves lunaticks. In an age with little street lighting, the society met on or about the night of the full moon.
Read more about this topic: Lunatic
Famous quotes containing the words lunar and/or distance:
“A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
Sang halfway through its little inborn tune.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The mystery of the evening-star brilliant in silence and distance between the downward-surging plunge of the sun and the vast, hollow seething of inpouring night. The magnificence of the watchful morning-star, that watches between the night and the day, the gleaming clue to the two opposites.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)