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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: book - the complete on-board celestial navigator
From: Kieran Kelly
Date: 2003 Mar 25, 10:43 +1100
From: Kieran Kelly
Date: 2003 Mar 25, 10:43 +1100
Gentlemen, I came across the Complete On Board Celestial Navigator shortly after becoming interested in celestial navigation. I knew a little but not a lot about the subject when I first looked into George Bennett's book, after teaching myself from Susan P Howell's book. While the latter is an excellent primer it should not be compared to Bennett's book - they seek to do two different things. Using Howell's book the navigator will still need to invest in and carry a current nautical almanac and set of often multi-volume tables such as HO 229. This is both expensive and bulky for yachting use. The great benefit of the Bennett book is that it is all there in one compact, light and cheap offering. The only sacrifices made are a slight loss in accuracy - negligible - and a need for limited interpolation. Bennett makes clear at the front of his book that it is intended as a backup for electronic methods of navigation and that it was prepared primarily with an eye to convenience and cost and I think it fills those aims admirably. But the really outstanding feature of this book is his table of change of altitude of a celestial body for any Z and lat over 5 minute intervals. This enables easy averaging of sights without maths. This is something that I had not seen published anywhere else in navigation textbooks and I mean anywhere else stretching back to Raper and Norie in the nineteenth century. I use Bennett's tables constantly to check sextant sights for accuracy and eliminate personal error. If nothing else, the book is worth the cover price for access to these techniques. So for anyone interested in the science/art/practice of celestial navigation Howell and Bennet are both very worthwhile investments. Kieran Kelly