"Any kind of boating can be fun," the author points out, "racing around the marks, or coastwise cruising where there is almost always at hand visual reference ashore from which bearings can be taken for locating one's position and thus finding one's way home. Severing these ties with land, however, offers a new kind of fun, a new kind of freedom, a freedom from dependence on land." Here is a basic beginner's book, introducing the amateur to the tools, the vocabulary, and the techniques of celestial navigation. Among the recommended tools are the H. O. 249 tables, the most widely used among amateur navigators at sea because of their simplicity. The ability to determine one's position at sea both liberates the sailor from the land and enables him to find his way to his destination. If you can read, add and subtract, understand angles, and use a protractor, you can learn to navigate in your armchair or at sea from Celestial Navigation by H. O. 249.
This manual has grown out of all the courses given by Dominique Prinet, a certified Instructor-Evaluator for Sail Canada who has been teaching celestial navigation since 2000. It has benefitted from the thoughtful contributions of over 100 students. The aim of Celestial Navigation is to give a sufficient grounding in the subject to determine position at sea using a sextant for fixes on the sun, moon, stars and planets. Furthermore, the material presented will prepare a reader who wishes to pursue a Celestial Navigation Certificate through self-study. The subject requires some comfort with the basic concepts of navigation, but the prospective navigator only needs to know how to add and subtract either times or angles. Lucid and well-paced, Celestial Navigation starts with fundamentals and definitions which ensure that a motivated student need not bring anything more to the table than his or her willingness to master the subject. Richly illustrated, it includes a chapter with more than forty pages of review exercises covering all topics. The cleverness of many of the concepts, explained here, will bring about great intellectual joy and satisfaction. Whether you are a recreational sailor or an individual pursuing professional certification as a navigator, Celestial Navigation will teach you what you need to know.
These tables were designed for air navigation where weight and space are at a premium, however, they are very popular with sailors too due to the fact that Vol. 1 offers a speedier way to compute stars. Volume 1 contains some stars (whose declinations may be more than 29°) that are pre-selected for optimum viewing and direction. This volume is applicable for an 8 year period, centered on its Epoch date.
Many books on celestial navigation take shortcuts in explaining concepts; incorrect diagrams and discussion are often used for the sake of moving the student along quickly. This book tells the true story-and the whole story. It conveys celestial navigation concepts clearly and in the shortest possible time.It's tailored for navigation in the GPS age-a time of computers, calculators, and web resources. Although it covers all of the traditional methods of 'working a sight, ' the primary thrust is using the (under $10) scientific calculator. By using equations that you key into your calculator, this book guides you toward a better understanding of the concepts of celestial navigation.You will learn novel ways to plot lines of position, ways to check your sextant accurately by star sights, and how to tell what time it is from a moon sight. The many appendices are a treasure of references and explanations of abstract ideas. Celestial Navigation is a crucial skill for the offshore navigator to know, this book provides the shortest path to that knowledge.
Celestial Navigation in Plain English offers a succinct, straightforward explanation of the fastest, easiest legitimate methods. Bill Heinlen presents the basic skills that will enable you to find your way anywhere in the world.
To the uninitiated, celestial navigation appears to be a somewhat frightening exercise in mathematics. In fact, the maximum mathematics involved in the new sight reduction systems is the addition of three lines of figures. Similarly, the apparent complexities of the solar and stellar systems take on a less frightening appearance when related to the lighthouses and similar earthly objects used for coastal navigation. Throughout this book, the author uses such a comparison between earthly and heavenly objects in explaining the close relationship between coastal and celestial navigation. In doing so, he reduces a complex subject to a simple and interesting one that can be absorbed by even the most non-mathematically minded. The book concentrates for much of its length on the plotting of the boat's position by sun, planets, and stars when out of sight of land. It also deals with related navigational routines such as checking the compass by using heavenly objects, taking radio time signals, and adjusting the sextant for day-to-day corrections. This is celestial navigation in its simplest form, presented in a way which even the most amateur navigator can understand and absorb.
Traditional navigation with a sextant, an almanac, and a book of tables is still thriving, even with the availability of accurate, cheap GPS receivers. Batteries sometimes go dead, and electronic devices fail, especially in salt air. Also, it can be satisfying and fun to work out a position and plot it, all on your own - but getting good at it requires some practice.100 problems is a self-contained book of realistic celestial navigation problems, including excerpts of all the necessary Nautical Almanac pages and sight-reduction tables, with answers and explanations.
Learn—and Appreciate—What Master Navigators Have Practiced for Centuries in This Hands-on, Friendly Approach. Celestial navigation, in all its forms, is nearly as old as mankind. Anyone who can master its intricacies stands at the end of a long line of master navigators that is centuries old—an expert among many who would be lost with electronics. David Berson, a columnist for Ocean Navigator magazine and an instructor at both the Ocean Navigator School of Seamanship and onboard the training schooner Ocean Star, offers here an approach that is refreshing, unique, and sure to attract a new generation of readers looking to demystify this essential art for sailors. Through his hands-on coursework Berson has developed a practical and learnable method of teaching that has appealed to a new generation of students. He will share his proven method here for the first time. While many books on celestial navigation insist this age-old art is needed only when electronics fail, Berson uses a unique approach that allows boaters to combine both the modern and the traditional. No other books does that. In Celestial Navigation, as he does in his popular column and classes, Berson simplifies the math that so often frightens and deters potential students. Berson takes the same approach with his writing that he does with his classes and columns,informal true-life anecdotes that entertain as well as educate. To Berson, celestial navigation is personal and valuable. Anyone reading this book will catch his contagious enthusiasm. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.