Celestial navigation w/ sextant

[PIR8 Hook]

My wife bought me a sextant and a book w/ star charts for my birthday. Now I HAVE two GPS units but I'd like to learn to use & adjust the sextant.

Is there anyone out there with the knowlege and willing to teach someone not so hot w/ #'s???

[Pitch Pocket]

Celestial navigation is covered in advanced courses in the US Power Squadron. You start with piloting and move up from there. Piloting is a 10 week course and Advanced Piloting is next. They show simple use of the sextant in AP, but get into the meat of it in the next course, Junior Navigation. You've got work to do to have it make any real sense.

You can order their learning guide 'Sight Reduction Methods' and try to figger it out, but the courses make a navigator out of you.

Power Squadron is at US Power Squadron

[avid]

Handheld tools for doing the calculations,
http://starpath.com/catalog/accessories/1874.htm
http://www.starpath.com/catalog/accessories/1863.htm
http://www.mobilegeographics.com/celestnav/


http://www.celestaire.com/catalog/products/3120.html
http://www.celestaire.com/catalog/Navigation_Computers/

Here are the forms for keeping the data straight.
http://www.celestaire.com/catalog/Si...duction/Tools/

Books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...658595-0766303

Most navigation software has built in routines for running the numbers. Of course and depending on if you are crossing the Pacific it wouldn?t be a bad idea to know how to do it by hand. If you had computer with Navigation software and a TI-86 and a Palm with the software and plenty of batteries you could probably leave fairly confident.

Navigation, of all kinds, takes practice like any mathematical study. Very few could read the book and say I know how to do that. Take a self study course and then run the 200 Problems in Celestial Navigation available from Celestaire. I have read one of the book but haven?t studied Celestial Navigation, my father was a WWII Navy Pilot and he knows how to do Celestial Nav.

David

[MasterMariner]

If you want to learn celestial Nav, I'de suggest taking a course from a professional maritime school.
You might be able to pick up doing the very easy stuff like LAN, sun lines and gyro error, but if you want to navigate with the stars, you'll have to know/understand terrestial nav first.
There's alot to it, but once the doors open up, its alot of fun.

[Mtn Man]

I would highly recommend getting Bowditch's book , with it you will learn navigation. It is not cheap but it is the bible for open ocean navigation. I read some of it while I was qualifing to be a Quartemaster in the Navy.

I have a fair amount of experience with celestial navigation, only I cheated and had an electronic navigator. It was a celestial based inertial dead reconing gyroscopic navigation system :grin: that would keep position to within a few feet per month.

Good luck and remember practice, practice, practice.

MM

[MasterMariner]

Nethanial Bowditch was the master of navigation and his book is the bible. Its a good reference for any mariner, but likely you won't understand very much of it since you aren't familiar with navigation... but still a good one to add to the professional library. Take a course on basic coastal nav before you do anything. This will give you a good base foundation.