The one thing I haven't figured out, is how to you have a long term accurate watch/timepiece that doesn't depend on outside technology and batteries? How do you verify it's accuracy and reset the time when appropriate? If you know your precise location you could use that to reset the time on your watch by working the numbers backwards. But if you don't know where you are to a precise degree, and you don't have a trustworthy time reference ... that's where I'm lost in what to do.
I've been reading about Lewis and Clark and then about John C. Fremont and recall something like they reset their watches using something obscure like - observing when the moons of Saturn or Jupiter (not sure which) disappeared around the planet. THAT time would not be subject to uncertainty in your own position (much).
Kind of astonishing what they accomplished with what little they had.
My celestial nav class in NROTC was reducing some given sightings as we were far inland and the instructors said we couldn't get a proper horizon to learn the sextant (that or they just figured it wasn't worth the trouble)
Once in the fleet, we had to confirm the sextant was still onboard - annually. (submarines)
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