Antique Brass Nautical Sextant Maritime Astrolabe Marine for Office Gifitng Item Rustic Vintage Home Decor Gifts Antique Brass Sextant This elegantly antique solid brass sextant makes a distinctive gift Mariners and surveyors used sextants to calculate latitude and longitude to navigate and explore Handmade replica! Size is 3 inches approx. It can be used for basic measurements only Great table top item for office, home and a unique gift. Manufactured By NauticalMart Inc Antique Brass Nautical Sextant Maritime Astrolabe Marine for Office Gifitng Being small in size, its use as a fully working instrument is limited but it makes a great gift, decoration item as well as demonstration piece. It has a built-in magnifier that can be swung into position to assist in reading the vernier scale. As a semi-functional instrument you are able to adjust the controls to determine the angle of a celestial object and horizon A sextant is an instrument that measures the angle between two objects that are visible. Primarily, it is used to measure the angle between a celestial body and the horizon, a process normally known as sighting the object or taking a sight. The angle measured and the time at which it was measured is then used to identify the location of the user on the grid map of the world. Thus sextants are basically navigational tools and have been successfully used by seaman and even other travelers