Flight Question Apollo CSM optics

[IDNeon]

It is frustrating to me that so much of Space flight seems to be outsourced to ground operations, that nothing inside the spacecraft is immeditaely intuitive.

That is to say the mission control expects the astronauts to give them data, then they work with it for 15,000 additional man hours, then give you back the changes you need to make to correct your flight. The whole time the data is completely USELESS to you, because of an example below.....this one involving optics. The optics isn't set up to DETERMINE your actual relationship to your trajectory, the optics is set up to feed this back to a program to do the work for you, as is evidenced by the fact that 0,0 is not aligned to anything meaningful to an Astronaut.

This question is annoying for me, because I've google-fu'd and apparently my Fu is doo-doo, because I just can't find a simple answer to this.

I have determined by flight-experimentation that the optics in CSM is offset by some amount, because 0,0 orientation on the optics does not look at 90deg down. Obviously because the spacecraft hull isn't a cylinder but rather a cone.

0,0 must be looking perpendicular to the hull of the spacecraft at some angle and I confirmed it from an Apollo Guidance And Navigation Manual:

https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/ApolloTrainingGuidanceAndNavigation_07-65.pdf

Notice the optical assembly is perpendicular to the hull.

This complicates looking perpendicular to the trajectory (prograde/retrograde...whatever it's called when you're lined up with it).

I can experiment with that I guess, assuming perigee and apogee will always be "tangent" to the surface of the orbited object. Therefore when prograde/retrograde at those points you will be able to discover the angle of the hull by aligning 0,0 optics to the dead center of the orbited object and see what your pitch is.

But....I'd also like to confirm these results?

So what's the freaking angle 0,0 is really looking out of? What's the freaking angle of the hull to the prograde/retrograde position.

 

[IDNeon]

Now that I'm understanding the optics at all ...

Last night I tested some of my own theories and was able to capture a Lunar orbit just by eyeballing it.

Granted it's a cruddy orbit with a huge ellipsis, but whatever.

The problem is I need a consistent frame of reference to acquire meaningful feedback.

Going off the diagram above, it is apparent the deboost is very close to the moon, this would make sense, because my theory is that the optimum point of deboost will be when the trajectory is tangential to the orbited body's circumference (whatever that's called).

i.e. you will be looking straight at the orbited body when you look 90degrees away from your trajectory.

I don't know how precise that is yet, don't really care, that's not the point. The point is I want to abuse the optics and see if I can fly the Apollo CSM by the seat-of-my-pants, and not by all the 10,000+ manhours or massive computing power required by the RIGHT METHOD.

 

[IDNeon]

So for anyone interested so far...

I have a way of using the FDAI to correct for deviation in the IMU so you can always find prograde/retrograde manually without computer aid.
Now I'm developing a way of determining your orbit using the optics.

Orbits are convenient because if you're between celestial bodies you'll be moving relatively straight and can align to trajectory to stars relatively easily.

Once that is difficult, it's because you're in a highly curved orbit and you can align to surface of what you're orbiting rather easily. God forbid you're orbiting a star or black hole.

I've tested that you can "circularize" your orbit at perigee by burning away from center of orbit.

I am NOT sure why this burn-test failed at apogee, but I intend to find out. Burning at apogee toward center of orbit had weird unexpected changes. Perhaps to further circularize your orbit when you have a high ellipses it requires a retrograde burn around the apogee, not sure yet.