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Seen on the U.S. Naval Observatory Web site:

"As part of a Navy software project, new algorithms for celestial
navigation have been developed. These algorithms are based on a
solution to a familiar astronomical problem - determining the orbit of
a body from a series of observations. In this case, the body in
question is a ship and its orbit is a rhumb-line track over the
spheroidal surface of the Earth. Given suitably accurate observing
systems, these algorithms would provide sight reduction and positional
fixes at the one arcsecond (30 meter) level of precision."

The algorithms were published in four papers by G.H. Kaplan, published
1995 - 1996. Two are available online. Reprints of all may be ordered
from the USNO.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/research/celnav.html

Several months ago I mentioned a whiz-bang celestial nav program
called STELLA, which unfortunately is in the military-only area of the
USNO site. I wonder if STELLA is based on the algorithms in these
papers.

   

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