NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Greg Rudzinski
Date: 2013 May 8, 07:13 -0700
John,
If a sailor only needs a low altitude azimuth to the nearest degree then Pub 249 will work entering with nearest whole latitude, declination, and altitude. I just did a quick check on this for a low altitude this morning at my location 34* 10.4' N 119* 13.8' W at 06:34:00 PDT. My smart phone app gave me an azimuth of 73.0*. Using a homemade Kamal had the observed Sun between 5* and 6*. Entering Pub 249 at declination 17* N, Lat. 34* N, and Hc 5* 25' shows azimuth at 73* to verify. This method would be sufficient for checking a small craft steering compass that is graduated every 2* degrees. Timing the observation is not necessary. The Nautical Almanac's daily page declination will be good enough.
Greg Rudzinski
Re: Sunrise - the Positive Side
From: John H
Date: 2013 May 8, 08:42 -0400
Jeremy makes a good point - a lot of times distant clouds will obscure the sun within a degree of the horizon, so you have to take azimuths when it's a few degrees above.
----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------