Editing Lunatic (section)

==Lunar distance==
The term ''lunatic'' was sometimes used to describe those who sought to discover a reliable method of determining [[longitude]] (before [[John Harrison]] developed the [[marine chronometer]] method of determining [[longitude]], the main theory was the [[Method of Lunar Distances]], advanced by [[Astronomer Royal]] [[Nevil Maskelyne]]). The artist [[William Hogarth]] portrayed a "longitude lunatic" in the eight scene of his 1733 work ''[[A Rake's Progress]]''.<ref name="sobel">{{cite book|last1=Sobel|first1=Dava|title=Longitude|date=2010|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=978-0802799678|page=87|edition=10th anniversary}}</ref> Twenty years later, though, Hogarth described John Harrison's [[John Harrison#The first three marine timekeepers|H-1 chronometer]] as "one of the most exquisite movements ever made."<ref name="sobel" />

Later, members of the [[Lunar Society]] of [[Birmingham]] called themselves ''lunaticks''.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Ian Wylie|editor1-last=Gravil|editor1-first=Richard|editor2-last=Lefebure|editor2-first=Molly|title=The Coleridge Connection: Essays for Thomas McFarland|publisher=Springer|location=1990|pages=25–26|chapter=Coleridge and the Lunaticks}}</ref> In an age with little street lighting, the society met on or near the night of the full moon.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Transactions and Proceedings|date=1897|publisher=Birmingham Archaeological Society|location=Birmingham, England|volume=22–25|page=26|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lrZCAQAAMAAJ&q=lunar+society+of+birmingham&pg=PA26|access-date=3 February 2017}}</ref>