Visitors can do exercises with sextants to measure the height of the Marbach gate tower. A documentation for the exercise is provided.
Background-Infomation:
A sextant (also known as a sixtant, from the Latin sextans, the sixth part of a circle) is a nautical and optical measuring instrument with which one can determine the angle between the line of sight to relatively distant objects, in particular the angular distance of a star from the horizon. It is mainly used for the elevation measurement of the sun and stars for astronomical navigation at sea, in the time of Mayer it was also used in astronomy and land surveying.