| I make no apologies
for the use of this material - with full acknowledgement to
Arthur Piver - who published this dissertation in 1963 through PI-CRAFT. Many
have treated celestial navigation as a "complex and difficult subject",
and so it can be. A simple practical method is needed to get us going on the path to a better understanding of the art of navigation out of sight of land. Or as George Buehler called it "What you need to do when your GPS fails!". It seems that Arthur Piver intended small boat mariners crossing the ocean to be able to find their position once a day by "knowing how to add and subtract and read the nautical almanac". Frederick Franklin, in his foreword to the booklet "hopes that this article will whet the appetite of the small boat skipper to learn more about the interesting subject of celestial navigation". What follows is a condensed version of Arthur's article. Good luck! |
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| 1. The Basics If we can determine the precise time GMT or UCT the sun is at it's highest in the sky at our location, we can directly convert that time to longitude. You should know the approximate time of Local Apparent Noon, the time the sun is highest in the sky. (See meridian passage in the almanac) Use the sextant to measure the sun's elevation at Local Apparent Noon. Next Calculate latitude. |
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