Nautical Antique and Polished Brass sextant with an elegant rosewood rich grain crafted premium box is a wonderful piece of collectible figurines. Crafted using the highest quality rosewood, this is an amazing addition to your nautical and ship s decor range. Intro about the sextant.----- In actual fact, it is merely an instrument that measures the angle a heavenly body (star, planet, sun, moon) makes with the visible horizon. It derives its name from the arc at the bottom which is one-sixth of a circle. The principles of a sextant are easy to master but its use requires some skill and practice. Small errors make for large discrepancies in one s position. The sextant basically consists of a telescope, a half-silvered horizontal mirror which the telescope "looks" through and a moving arm on which the index mirror is fixed. By manipulating this arm a star or other celestial body can be made to appear on the horizon. Accurate adjustments are made by means of a micrometer knob. The angle can then be read off the arc and micrometer. The shades are to use when the object being looked at is bright - such as the sun.