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The U.S. Navy has an automated celestial navigation system deployed in
the fleet.  I believe it can sight stars during daylight, but I'm not
sure on that.  From Paul Hirose's comments about similar systems for
the Air Force, the system may be ridiculously accurate.

You can find reference to it by following the links at the Naval
Observatory site  into some of the papers
published by the staff there.  It's in a paper on estimating one's
position using a train of sights taken over a fairly long time while
underway.

One thing upon which many depend for celestial navigation is an
almanac.  Most printed ones are produced by governments, and I suppose
their availability could decline during wartime, much as the
availability of GPS might decline.  Nowadays though, reproducing them
by computer is not a big deal.

Fred

On Jan 14, 2004, at 6:23 PM, Jim Thompson wrote:

> I can't help wondering if unanticipated technological breakthroughs
> might
> bring CN back again, reconverging the experience of land and sea
> celestial
> navigators.
>
> Imagine if we could measure altitudes of celestial bodies at sea or
> land any
> time of the day or night, using an inexpensive rock solid artificial
> horizon
> that shows magnitude 3 stars, and does not depend on a fragile energy
> source
> for light.  The other nice breakthrough would be an inexpensive,
> compact,
> indestructible way of accessing almanac data and reducing sights.
> Then the
> marine navigator could be freed both GPS satellites and ship's power
> supplies on the one hand, and fragile sextants, twilight and thick
> books on
> the other.
>
> Until then I value hearing about all types of CN on this list, land
> and sea.
> Keep it coming!
>
> Jim Thompson
> jim2@jimthompson.net
> www.jimthompson.net
> Outgoing mail scanned by Norton Antivirus
> -----------------------------------------
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Navigation Mailing List
>> [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of Kieran Kelly
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 6:51 PM
>> This is an interesting point and raises questions about what
>> types of issues
>> are worthy of discussion on this list. When I was encouraged to join
>> this
>> list several years ago I was told that it was for people interested in
>> celestial navigation.
>

   

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