Introduction to Celestial Navigation for Mariners

Identify the marine sextant's parts and learn to read angles using the index arm and micrometer drum. Practice aligning the sun's lower limb with the horizon to improve navigation accuracy.

Learn how to determine latitude at noon using the sun’s zenith distance and declination, with practical steps, special cases, and the nautical almanac.

Refine celestial navigation by applying index error, height of eye (dip), and main corrections to sextant readings to determine geographic position, including longitude as the Greenwich angle per Nautical Almanac.

Identify Polaris using the Big Dipper or Cassiopeia, then apply Polaris tables and the universal plotting sheet to compute latitude and plot celestial fixes.

Learn to determine sea position with the sun line method by measuring the sun, using the nautical almanac, building a triangle with an assumed position, solving the spherical triangle, and plotting lines of position.

Practice sun navigation with sextant readings, correct for index error and height of eye, and use the nautical almanac to derive Greenwich Mean Time and sun declination.

Explore advanced celestial navigation by mastering the sextant, Nautical Almanac, and accuracy corrections, then compare using reduction tables with direct height and azimuth calculations.

Learn to navigate by stars and planets, forming lines of position with star identification, nautical almanac charts, and planet readings; use Orion, Scorpius, and the Big Dipper for fixes.

Explore navigating with the moon by applying horizontal parallax, declination changes, and GHG corrections to compute lines of position and achieve a three-body fix using the moon, planets, and stars.