And that’s a wrap on 2022. Let’s look back on this year and remember what I got done!
First and foremost, direct progress on the Almagest was rather low again this year. Last year, I finished just over $6\%$ of the book. This year, I managed to get through $9.79\%$1. However, I would say that the increase in pace was largely due to some easier material.
At the beginning of the year, I was half way through Book VI, which is on eclipses. This was certainly challenging material, but once through that, it was on to Book VII which has mostly been a discussion of precession and relatively easy.
Had I continued on, I would have added at least an additional $10\%$ to that as the next thing in the Almagest is the star catalog which is just $60$ pages of copying the tables.
Instead, I put the Almagest on pause to review the very interesting discussion about whether it was original or copied from Hipparchus. I really thought I knew where the discussion was going to be going, but have been quite surprised with all the twists and turns. This is going to be a very interesting class when I finish this side project!
Speaking of classes, this year was quite busy for them with a few new class being added to the roster. That included the Celestial Navigation class. This was a lot of fun, especially since we were able to do a hands on version of the class on the Fyrdraka – the Viking longship Calontir sails on the lake at Lilies war.
Second, ever since completing the solar model, I’ve been talking with a local friend, who does the astrology side of all this, about teaching a joint class in which I would teach how to use the solar model to predict solar position and she would teach interpretation. We finally got around to putting this class together this summer, teaching it first locally as a trial run, and then again at Pennsic.
All the work has definitely been noticed though, as this year I also received my Silver Hammer (Calontir’s GoA science award) for my astronomical work.
In terms of observing, this year was pretty short on observing as I only took the quadrant out five times. Weather was largely uncooperative. However, the lack of observing was also due to being at events for several weekends as the COVID-19 pandemic moves from pandemic to endemic.
And boy did I attend quite a few events. For major wars I hit Gulf Wars, Lilies War, Pennsic War, and Great Western War. Plus probably a dozen-ish other events throughout the year.
Moving beyond the SCA, this was also a big year for me in that my girlfriend moved half way across the country and is now living with me. After living by myself for a decade, this is a big change and has also taken a lot of my time. As she’s an editor professionally, she’s been reviewing my posts. So hopefully the grammar has improved.
Hopefully in $2023$ I’ll be able to finish up this detour on the star catalog, get that new class together and get to work on the Almagest again. I’m quite excited to see how the planetary models all work.