NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Status of Celestial Nav in 2015
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2015 Mar 5, 12:22 +0000
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2015 Mar 5, 12:22 +0000
That begs the question of "why?"
There have been a number of incidents in recent times where the 'navigator' relied on his electronic navigation systems to keep him found - only to find that when the electronics went sponk (electrical engineers will know what this term means...) they did not have a clue where they were.
Celestial navigation, on the other hand, is actually an oxymoronic statement as it is not a means of 'navigation' at all. It is a means of checking on your dead reckoning, which is the principal means of navigation. That requires (or should require) that your estimated position is regularly updated on a chart or map
on the basis of course and speed - whether on sea or land or in the air - and you always have a reasonable idea of where you are. Every so often, that estimated position is upgraded to an actual position by means of a celestial navigation fix. But in the meantime, the dead reckoning navigator is constantly observing the world about him to gather information about where he is, or whether he is not where he thinks he is. Electronic navigators lose that contact with the world about them as they think they have no need of it.
