NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: John D. Howard
Date: 2017 Apr 13, 08:43 -0700
Tony,
You have run into a problem that many of us have had - many textbooks and no standard.
There is no standard for the acronoms used in cell-nav. The closest is what was taught during WW2 when thousands of navigators were trained by the US and UK military using standard texts. If you are using the HO 229, 249 or Brittish version then the book will say what the different letters mean. Where you get into trouble is a non-military text.
I also have seen A, AZ, Az, An, Z, Zn, etc in different books going back to the 1800s. You just have to read what that author has defined. In general, when figuring an azimuth you will get the inside angle of the triangle from you to the GP ( sun, star, moon, planet )and then will need to figure the angle from North based on usually a set of rules.
I don't mean to be vague but if you use a calculator and formula or a HO table or a graph ( like Hanno Ix's ) there will be different rules.
Hope this helps.
John H.
