NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Nautical Almanac Usage
From: Michael Dorl
Date: 2004 Oct 23, 08:37 -0500
From: Michael Dorl
Date: 2004 Oct 23, 08:37 -0500
At 05:02 PM 10/22/04 -0500, you wrote:
>Could anyone explain me why would people
>(say on this list, I don't mean the Navy)
>but the government edition at all?!
>
>Commercial edition sold by Celestaire is IDENTICAL.
>If the five added pages of advertisement irritate you
>so much you can just tire them out.
>
>It ships by FedEx in 3-4 days.
>I bought my 2005 in September, and they were so kind that
>added their last copy of 2004 for free!
>
>Alex.
I guess I'll order one from Celstaire twenty some dollars vs $43 at the GPO.
Another book to be considered is the Astronomical Almanac ($40 at the GPO).
Although much is Greek to me, there are a few gems in it such as
a extensive star index with RA, Decl, and proper motions
a great glossary
a complete description of time scales and coordinate systems with
lots of history
delta T from 1620 forward
scattered prose on various topics including algorithms.
It's certainly not an easy book to understand or use but I've learned a lot
although it took lots of effort. If nothing else, I've learned I know very
little about astronomy or the mathematics associated with it.
