Hi John
The answer is YES, though for marine CN you will have to get guidance from others on this forum.
The subject has been discussed and many have used the TIs to do exactly that.
In the latish 70s whilst on P3B Orions I wrote a program that calculated at anytime, anywhere on earth 3 star fix for a aeronautical navigator.
Taking 3 star fixes in an aircraft is a fast moving big event and you had to precalculate all 3 fixes selecting 3 stars you hoped would be visible approx spaced 120 deg apart.
In an aircraft travelling 6 or 7 nms a min if you started calculations say 30 mins ahead ( why, it takes approx 10 mins to take a 3 star fix and 10 mins to calculate and 10 mins to get the aircraft setup) and that meant 6 x 20 = 120 nms ahead
of your start which means the stars could be obscured by the time you started!!!!
And you had to start your calculations again.
A constant problem.
The arrival of the TI 58/59 enabled all the air almanac info for all 54 nav stars could be stored on mag tapes.
And if cloud partially obscured 1 or 2 of your stars you could still shoot 3 stars, different ones and in a jiffy 3 calculate in a min your fix info for the new stars.
Or in a min, look out the periscopic sextant and select 3 visible stars and in a minute calculate a 3 star running fix.
It was a miracle machine. I wrote the package myself. No internet or anyone else doing it that I knew in those days.
I eventually sold it and bought an HP 41CV which was better I believed as it used RPN.
The programs I probably wrote and stored in my paperwork somewhere, but cannot remember.
Regards Howard G
-------- Original message --------
From: John Pazereskis <NoReply_Pazereskis@fer3.com>
Date: 23/7/22 04:17 (GMT+10:00)
To: Howard George <HHG@raptorbusinessservices.com.au>
Subject: [NavList] Texas Instruments TI-59 with Marine Navigation modiule
Hello Everybody, I know nothing (literaly nothing) about calculator usage in celestial navigation. I find the idea semi-interesting and would like to give it a tiny try. I remembered that I have a TI-59 that I bought new in the late 70s (I think). I
also have the Marine Navigation module/program and all the back up literature...most of which seems blindingly foggy to me a first sight (no pun intended). In order to use the TI-59, I'd have to buy a battery...not expensive, but not cheap. So I ahope some
of you may have had experience with the TI-59. Did it woork well? Was it reasonably easy for someone who knows paper sight reduction to use in spite of instructions like: press KK/xyz/ to get the answer?
I see that the module does not incllude an almanac, but I don't think that would be a problem for me. And I see that the program can produce two sight fixes...Do later, more advanced programs (on other calculators) produce fixes from three or more sights?
Again, I just like to benefit from others' experiences.
Best regards,
John P
