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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
B52 star tracker
From: Trammell H
Date: 2026 Apr 18, 23:38 -0700
From: Trammell H
Date: 2026 Apr 18, 23:38 -0700
Ken Shirriff takes apart the celestial navigation system from a B52: http://www.righto.com/2026/04/B-52-star-tracker-angle-computer.html
In the early 1960s, an automated system was developed for the B-52 bomber to automatically track stars and compute navigation information. Digital computers weren't suitable at the time, so the star tracking system performed trigonometric calculations with an electromechanical analog computer called the Angle Computer.
