NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: CelNav without sextant
From: Mike Boersma
Date: 2004 Nov 2, 13:59 -0500
From: Mike Boersma
Date: 2004 Nov 2, 13:59 -0500
Given GMT and an almanac, you can still do a noon sight for latitude and longitude (use the equation of time on the daily page to establish meridian passage of the sun, the difference between this as observed and GMT gives longitude; the declination of the sun at noon will give you a means to get the latitude -- you would need to improvise some elevation method to determine when sun is at its zenith). The almanac gives declination information for both the navigational stars and many minor stars -- if you you can establish when one of these is at zenith right above you, the declination of the star = your latitude (perhaps through some sort of plumb bob). Any meridian passage of a star, planet, or moon will give you longitude (again you will need to have a elevation method to determine this). GHA of the star, planet or moon at the time of meridian passage = longitude. Local sunrise and sunset times can be determined from information in the almanac and can be used to establish lat and long. The same goes for moonrise and moonset etc. With the rise and set of the sun, moon, planet, or star, you do not need an elevation measuring device. You will want to take into account parallax. Make a kamal for low altitude elevation measurements. Bowditch has a good discussion on these kinds of methods as do many others. Good watchkeeping (keeping an accurate log) will allow for a good DR plot which will minimize the inconvenience of not having a sextant. The same goes for weather conditions which do not allow for the use of the sextant. Michael Boersma Alexandre Eremenko wrote: > What sort of Cel Nav can you do without sextant? > (Assuming you have an almanac and chronometer. > Or your wristwatch and radio to check it). > > Apparently yes. I am not speaking of eclipses > which are rare events. One method was already > discussed: timing the occultations of stars by > the dark edge of the moon, a method slightly > less precise than that of lunar distances because > the distance is too small, and only available > for somewhat less than 1/2 of each month, > when the moon moves with > its dark edge forwardis:-) > > Another method was proposed by Bill in our recent > off-the-list conversation: timing the rise and > set of various bodies. Each such timing gives you > one position line. It is interesting, how precise > can this method be. (I understand that the > major obstacle here is refraction). > > Alex.