Hewitt Schlereth is a writer and sailing enthusiast.

This text focuses on the history of the development of hand-held celestial navigation instruments, offering descriptions of the tools used. It also includes a glossary of technical terms.

This manual has grown out of all the courses given by Dominique Prinet, a certified Instructor-Evaluator for Sail Canada who has been teaching celestial navigation since 2000. It has benefitted from the thoughtful contributions of over 100 students. The aim of Celestial Navigation is to give a sufficient grounding in the subject to determine position at sea using a sextant for fixes on the sun, moon, stars and planets. Furthermore, the material presented will prepare a reader who wishes to pursue a Celestial Navigation Certificate through self-study. The subject requires some comfort with the basic concepts of navigation, but the prospective navigator only needs to know how to add and subtract either times or angles. Lucid and well-paced, Celestial Navigation starts with fundamentals and definitions which ensure that a motivated student need not bring anything more to the table than his or her willingness to master the subject. Richly illustrated, it includes a chapter with more than forty pages of review exercises covering all topics. The cleverness of many of the concepts, explained here, will bring about great intellectual joy and satisfaction. Whether you are a recreational sailor or an individual pursuing professional certification as a navigator, Celestial Navigation will teach you what you need to know.

About the Manual Celestial Navigation Exercises for Class and Home Study was designed to facilitate the work of instructors using the free PowerPoint slide presentation available at CelestialNavigationBook.com. This exercise manual, available in hard copy and in PDF format for tablets, reproduces the questions posed at regular intervals throughout the slide presentation; it provides the work-forms guiding the calculations, and the solutions. Students taking a course from an instructor who follows the slide presentation will normally have the associated course book Celestial Navigation using the Sight Reduction Tables Pub. No. 249. In order to facilitate the download process, the free version of the exercise manual (available for download from CelestialNavigationBook.com), includes neither the Almanac nor the Sight Reduction Tables required for the calculations because these tables are identical to the ones in the course book. This complete version of the exercise manual, with all the required data tables in the appendix, will thus be useful mostly to navigators who do not have the course book but wish to practice on their own, as well as to students who follow the presentation and have the course book but do not wish to download and print 140 pages of questions and answers.

The 12th edition of this bestselling book is proof of the success of Mary Blewitt's concise and clear style in explaining a particularly difficult skill, and it has been the bible for many generations of ocean navigators. Since this book was first published, the huge advances in electronic navigation have transported most offshore navigators to a world of press-button convenience. However, there is still a vital need for traditional skills when things go wrong: batteries can fail, aerials go overboard, and electronics have been known to get wet. A bestseller for over 50 years, Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen is a model of simplicity and clarity. The worked examples require only straightforward addition and subtraction, which explains why this book has truly earned its reputation for admirable conciseness and for making a tricky subject easy to understand. 'The "bible" of navigation for generations of yachtsmen... worth its weight in gold' Sailing

The Flight Navigator Handbook provides information on all phases of air navigation and is a source of reference for everyone in the field, from navigators to navigator students. This handbook explains how to measure, chart the earth, and use flight instruments to solve basic navigation problems. It also contains data pertaining to flight publications, preflight planning, in-flight procedures, and low altitude navigation. Specific topics covered throughout the pages of this informational and helpful guide include: Reading maps, charts, and grids Dead reckoning Radio aid fixing and radio navigation Celestial concepts and special celestial techniques Computing altitude Pressure pattern navigation And much more! Additional information can also be found in the four included and up-to-date appendixes. This includes a listing of references and supporting information used in this publication; mathematical formulas to use as an aid in preflight and in-flight computations; chart and navigation symbols; and a Celestial Computation Sheet.

These tables were designed for air navigation where weight and space are at a premium, however, they are very popular with sailors too due to the fact that Vol. 1 offers a speedier way to compute stars. Volume 1 contains some stars (whose declinations may be more than 29°) that are pre-selected for optimum viewing and direction. This volume is applicable for an 8 year period, centered on its Epoch date.

Traditional navigation with a sextant, an almanac, and a book of tables is still thriving, even with the availability of accurate, cheap GPS receivers. Batteries sometimes go dead, and electronic devices fail, especially in salt air. Also, it can be satisfying and fun to work out a position and plot it, all on your own - but getting good at it requires some practice.100 problems is a self-contained book of realistic celestial navigation problems, including excerpts of all the necessary Nautical Almanac pages and sight-reduction tables, with answers and explanations.