TOS Tech questions

[Captain X]

Seeing no thread, I decided to start one, though I only have one question right now.

Does anyone know what that compass-looking instrument in the middle of the helm/nav console was called and what its function was?

 

[JuanBolio]

It is an astrogator. The navigator uses it to plot position and set courses.

 

[Albertese]

I've heard it was made of a surplus part from a Navy destroyer. Something to do with navigating the Earth's oceans. But with a fun spinny arrow part to disguise it. I may be wrong though, anyone know different?

 

[Captain X]

Cool, thanks, this gives me a few ideas for something.

 

[Omega_Glory]

Its the spirogragh. Sulu and Chekov make cool circle thingys with it.

 

[Captain X]

 

[Maurice]

Actually, while it might've been surplus, it certainly bit the bill. IIRC it consisted of a ring with 360 degrees marked off on it, with a smaller disc inside identically numbered. You could set a course in any direction by turning one to the azimuth you wanted, and the other to the elevation, thus you end up with a course like one eleven mark fourteen (or azimuth 111, elevation 14). The function of the plastic overrays, I dunno. You don't need XYZ coordinates, just a heading. Presumably plotting a courrse meant calculting the change in heading required to get from coordinates XYZ here to XYZ there and giving that to the helmsman to steer.

 

[Timo]

I'd argue there wouldn't be a need for a navigator if it were that simple. I'm not a big proponent of "warp highways", but there may well be advantageous and disadvantageous routes between A and B even through seemingly empty space.

The positioning of the round thing is awkward for the navigator anyway, but it's nicely in view of the skipper and still somewhat visible to the two guys who fly the ship. I'd mainly consider it a display, on which the current heading or bearing is somehow indicated for the situation-awareness benefit of the Captain. Perhaps in "reality", the arrows and grids move a lot during fierce combat maneuvers, but we fail to see this because those maneuvers tend to involve shots from forward to aft in which our heroes lean left and right and sometimes jump over the railing?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[WendellM]

FWIW, Memory Alpha has a nice pic of the astrogator here. Their brief article (including a pic of the ENT Defiant's version) is here.

TrekCore has a pic of the TAS version here. And here's the TMP version.

 

[Maurice]

I'd argue there wouldn't be a need for a navigator if it were that simple. I'm not a big proponent of "warp highways", but there may well be advantageous and disadvantageous routes between A and B even through seemingly empty space.

The positioning of the round thing is awkward for the navigator anyway, but it's nicely in view of the skipper and still somewhat visible to the two guys who fly the ship. I'd mainly consider it a display, on which the current heading or bearing is somehow indicated for the situation-awareness benefit of the Captain. Perhaps in "reality", the arrows and grids move a lot during fierce combat maneuvers, but we fail to see this because those maneuvers tend to involve shots from forward to aft in which our heroes lean left and right and sometimes jump over the railing?

Timo Saloniemi

'Fraid I don't agree with that. The numbers are too small to be informational to someone sitting back where the Captain is.

 

[Timo]

Quite true - so I presume the information content would be in the orientation of the supposedly ever-changing red and black lines in the center instead. The three-pointed central fixture might be mobile as well. This would be more or less the equivalent of the three small spinning starship symbols on the TWoK control panel, serving as a futuristic "artificial horizon" of some sort, but less intuitive to us 21st century oglers.

In that theory, the numbers would remain unchanged, immobile and largely uninformative, as the 360 degree nature of the full circle would already be known to the user.

Timo Saloniemi