11–20 of 38 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Celestial navigation is way easier than you think it is. We have accurate clocks now, and you can just take the measurements and feed it into the computer.
The point of this training today, I would expect, is that computers might not always be there.
There are various techniques based on time of day and the stars you can see, but if you're not doing it regularly you're going to have to look up the procedure anyway.
And although you might not always be able to rely on GPS, inertial navigation, dead reckoning, and visual navigation using landmarks, celestial navigation has a huge drawback.
It's defeated by cloud cover and fog.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of this training today, I would expect, is that computers might not always be there.
If the people on a modern naval ship don't have access to some kind of basic computer, then they have bigger problems than navigation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Celestial navigation is way easier than you think it is. We have accurate clocks now, and you can just take the measurements and feed it into the computer.
The point of this training today, I would expect, is that computers might not always be there.
Celestial navigation requires (the computational equivalent of) a graphing calculator.
I was in the last class to have the old celestial navigation class. It's not a difficult thing to do. You take a measurement with a sextant then consult a fifty pound book full of tables, get the two closest numbers to what you want and interpolate. There are various techniques based on time of day and the stars you can see, but if you're not doing it regularly you're going to have to look up the procedure anyway. An…
You'd harden the system against EMP which is probably a standard requirement of military electronics anyway (I'd hope...)
I was in the last class to have the old celestial navigation class. It's not a difficult thing to do. You take a measurement with a sextant then consult a fifty pound book full of tables, get the two closest numbers to what you want and interpolate. There are various techniques based on time of day and the stars you can see, but if you're not doing it regularly you're going to have to look up the procedure anyway. An…
Not to be overly pedantic, but if you have an accurate timepiece you can get your longitude from averaging sunrise and sunset times. It's not particularly accurate, if you can't see the sun, but could be useful if you where otherwise lost at sea and under total cloud cover for a long period of time.
I was in the last class to have the old celestial navigation class. It's not a difficult thing to do. You take a measurement with a sextant then consult a fifty pound book full of tables, get the two closest numbers to what you want and interpolate. There are various techniques based on time of day and the stars you can see, but if you're not doing it regularly you're going to have to look up the procedure anyway. An…
I can pick out the Big Dipper at night, and figure out if I'm going east or west by the sun during the day, but that's pretty much the extent of it. I've never been out in the open sea, where I imagine you can actually see the stars well - the day-glo murk from the omnipresent streetlights blots out most of them if you are anywhere near civilization.