NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Joshua Carty
Date: 2026 Feb 12, 10:48 -0800
Last week I was visiting a friend on Puget Sound. As it was getting dark Friday evening, I noticed that the star Kochab was directly below Polaris in the northern sky. Really just perfectly aligned. Decided to get my latitude...
At 01:55:15 UT, the altitude of Kochab was 31°38'. Davis Mark 15 sextant. Index error was 1' off the arc before the sight, 2' on the arc after ... I figure zero is OK. My height of eye was 16 feet plus or minus maybe two feet. Am I missing any details?!
What was my latitude? I realized I wasn't sure how to do this after the sight! Can you all tell me how to? Are there different ways... And how about longitude? Since I know the time when Kochab was aligned with the north star, does that give me a good longitude, too?
Josh
