Underway - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 134

Celestial Navigation: Useful Tools
A number of sight reduction software programs are available for free on the Internet. See
www.celnav.de [#1] and www.navigation-spreadsheets.com [#2] . A Google search for “navig-
ation calculators” will bring up many more.
OpenCPN [#3] , a popular chart plotter software for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, offers
a celestial navigation plug-in which offers ephemeris calculation, sight reduction, and auto-
matically plots LOPs.
CelNav [#4] , a free software application developed by the author, was designed to specific-
ally support the method described in this chapter. In addition to automating sight reduction,
it includes an electronic almanac and the ability to log sight data in a spreadsheet format for
later analysis. CelNav is available stand-alone [#5] or as part of Navigatrix [#6] , a complete
operating system and software tool-set for use on a boat.
An invaluable tool for anyone involved in celestial navigation is Stellarium [#7] , an electron-
ic planetarium that makes it very easy to identify suitable stars and planets for a fix.
For those who want to learn more about celestial navigation, there are numerous tutorials
available on the Internet (for example, celestialnavigation.net [#8] ). If you are not afraid of a
bit of math, Henning Umland's A Short Guide to Celestial Navigation is an excellent
source, well suited to complement some of the more “how-to” oriented guides.
An excellent book that effortlessly introduces the theory without falling short on the prac-
tical application is John Karl's Celestial Navigation in the GPS Age , Paradise Cay Publica-
tions 2011.
[#1] http://www.celnav.de
[#2] http://www.navigation-spreadsheets.com
[#3] http://tinyurl.com/kpqrw6g
[#4] http://tinyurl.com/lokg3pb
[#5] http://tinyurl.com/lokg3pb
[#6] http://navigatrix.net
[#7] http://www.stellarium.org