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by dieselgate
3 days ago
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Any other recommendations for getting into celestial navigation? I've used a sextant a few times and would like to purchase one but am aware that's only the hardware-side of things. Do the books you mentioned above provide sufficient tabulation for navigation? I sail in the Puget Sound for reference, thank you! |
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Anyway, I was reading Merle B. Turner's Celestial for the Cruising Navigator, before I decided to focus on trig for a while. IMHO, it doesn't explain some of the trigonometric formulas as well as it should, or how they were derived, and I just can't learn that way. It's actually not a bad book, but I did find myself consulting a lot of outside resources (mainly with trig and some astronomy). The main problem with it to me is just not explaining how some formulas were derived. It's more dense than most books, but very informative.
For math, there's the book linked in the previous comment, and I'd also recommend looking at:
- An Introduction to Spherical Trigonometry by J.H. Clough-Smith -- I actually found Trigonometry for Navigating Officers in it's bibliography.
- The Elements of Navigation (1E) by Charles H. Cotter is an all-inclusive navigation book that starts with all the necessary trig in the first few chapters. A WORD OF WARNING THOUGH: I started reading the third edition of this book (revised by Lahiry) and it had so many mistakes in it I threw it out; honestly I'm not sure how it got published. Go on abebooks or biblio and buy the 1E if you're interested. I'm starting to work this book concurrently with Trigonometry for Navigating Officers and it's great so far, if dated (published 1958 IIRC).
For some books I own but haven't really started on in earnest yet,
- Celestial in the GPS Age by John Karl is supposedly an excellent resource, and I believe it even introduces a new method for fixing your position. It also gets into more of the "why".
- Dutton's Nautical Navigation (15E) by Thomas J. Cutler and Celestial Navigation: A Complete Home Study Course by David Burch are both supposed to be good as well as far telling you how to do everything, but don't appear to explain some of the "why", like the azimuth equation.
- A Short Guide to Celestial Navigation by Henning Umland is a great resource, but definitely leans more technical. You can find the PDF here:
https://www.celnav.de/page2.htm
Besides that, you'll obviously need a Nautical Almanac for the current year (you can find a PDF online), and you'll probably want a copy of:
- Bowditch (American Practical Navigator). This is the definitive reference for anything navigation, it's published by the USCG and you can also download it for free:
Part 1:
https://thenauticalalmanac.com/2024_Bowditch-_American_Pract...
Part 2:
https://thenauticalalmanac.com/2024_Bowditch-_American_Pract...
You can get a print version from Paradise Cay Publications, it's both parts of Bowditch in a single hardback:
https://www.paracay.com/2024-american-practical-navigator-bo...
Norie's isn't strictly necessary IMO unless you're doing some serious offshore boating like crossing to Hawai'i. Just use a calculator while you're learning. Learn to use Norie's after you're comfortable and keep it as a backup onboard.
You may also be interested in checking out Starpath, which is based in Seattle, and I believe you can even drop by and talk to somebody who's more knowledgeable than I:
https://starpath.com/
They publish the David Burch books, and offer online courses.
Celestaire is another good shop for celnav:
https://www.celestaire.com/
Anyway, this was longer than I intended but I hope this puts you in the right direction!