NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Joe Plazak
Date: 2026 Sep 5, 06:48 -0700
For those interested in historical space navigation, a relevant source is the 1961 "Space Navigation Handbook" (NAVPERS 92988), largely attributed to Captain P.V.H. Weems. The book is freely available on HathiTrust:
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4265716
Weems was recalled to active duty to offer a course on this topic at the U.S. Naval Academy in July, 1961. The U.S. National Air and Space Museum has a nice photo of Weems teaching the course (and holding the book):
https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/image/nasm-9a16678jpg
As for his (patented) method, it boils down to simple earth observations which:
1. determine SHA and declination by optically observing the position of the Earth's center against the star field
2. determine distance stadimetrically by measuring the angle subtended by the Earth's disk.
-jp
