THIS WEBSITE IS NO LONGER BEING MAINTAINED – BUT YOU CAN STILL CONTACT ME WITH QUESTIONS. BROKEN LINKS ETC.
Celestial Navigation is the art and science of finding your way by the sun, moon, stars, and planets, and, in one form or another, is one of the oldest practices in human history.
Celestial Navigation Charts
Topics include: Celestial Theory, Star Identification, Sight Reductions, Sailings, ETA, Running Fix, Solar Observations and use of the Nautical Almanac. Students will be provided with an online study package to review Navigation General topics outside of Celestial and Oceans Navigation in preparation for the final examination. This virtual sextant app uses the phone sensors and camera to read the altitude of celestial objects. Turn your phone into a simple marine sextant for celnav training. On screen, real time display of stars and planets. Great for celestial object identification. Free app Download for iOS and Android: Worldwide sailing simulation using physics. A free celestial navigation book unlike any other, including lunar distance equations. This book is dedicated to removing the cloak of mystery; to teach the concepts, some interesting history, the techniques, and computational methods using the simple pocket scientific calculator. And yes, also how to build your own navigational tools.
This webpage is an attempt to bring together all of the best Celestial Navigation resources on the internet, with pointers to other resources as well. Find out why we should study Celestial navigation in the age of GPS; get an introduction to Celestial Navigation’s history, then take a look at the navigational astronomy page as a background for the theory and practice; teachers, discover how celestial navigation can enliven the classroom, whether your field is earth science, astronomy, math, history, or literature, with special links about Vikings; learn about navigational instruments, including sextants, astrolabes, nocturnals, and planispheres; learn about nonwestern, noninstrument Polynesian starpaths and Wayfinding; read quotations about navigation; check out some schools; or just go directly to the list of resources which lists the sources from the other pages. Other links of interest are here.
NEW LINKS ON THE VIKINGS PAGE, including for the 2016 and 2018 expeditions of the largest Viking ship, the Draken Harald Harfagre.
Celestial Navigation Calculator Free Online Scientific Calculator
- NEW BOOK! Starpath has published a great new book that will help in learning celestial navigation the fun way! You do the work for a full ocean passage to Hawaii: “After completing this passage you will be prepared to navigate by celestial navigation on your own, whether you need or choose to.”
- And another recent book: Sam Low’s Hawaiki Rising: Hokule’a, Nainoa Thompson, and the Hawaiian Renaissance.