Celestial navigation

As easy as ABC

Celestial navigation historically served to determine the position of

ships on the high seas, but in the era of GPS it has become redundant
as it has been taken over by satellites.

This however does not mean that the stars are no longer used to
determine a location on the ocean. The stars remain a backup for
navigation of ships in case of GPS problems, and there is an army of
keen sailors who still practice it for pleasure and as a sport.

Just imagine being able to navigate the seas almost the same way as
your fellow sailors did hundreds or thousands of years ago. Instead of
relying on electronic devices, you can apply the skills of observing
stars and other celestial bodies which have guided mariners since the
beginning of recorded history.

You might think that celestial navigation requires advanced

knowledge of mathematics and geometry. In fact, all you need to
remember from the school curriculum is how to add and subtract
numbers and the fact that angles are measured in degrees and are
usually denoted by the degree sign ("°"). A sextant and nautical charts
will do the rest.

Do not let the word "sextant" put you off. Trust us, this is the only
complicated word in a rather straightforward method of fixing your
position.

Celestial Navigation Basics

The Earth's surface is divided into imaginary lines used for locating
certain points and positions. The lines which stretch across the globe
from the South to the North Pole are called longitudes, while
latitudes are lines drawn parallel to the equator.

The combination of longitude and latitude in degrees provide the

coordinates that are used in navigation of any kind. Let's learn how to
find them.

Celestial navigation is based on the ability to follow celestial

bodies, such as the Moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter
and some of the brightest stars. However, determining your
current position using the sun is the most common practice as
seafarers will often do this in broad daylight.

So, imagine that the sun rays that reach the Earth are always parallel
to each other. This is not entirely true, but we will accept this rather
simplified view of the world for the time being.
And somewhere on the earth's surface there is always a point
(constantly changing its position due to the rotation of the planet)
through which a sun ray could pass directly to the center of the earth.
A person standing at this imaginary point would see the sun at a right
angle (90 degrees) directly above him.

Now imagine that somewhere miles away we are drifting on a yacht

with our GPS broken, and we see the sun from a different angle but
we are desperate to get our bearings. How do we do this?

Let's draw an imaginary line from the center of the earth to our yacht.

Step one: on the yacht, find the angle between the horizon and the
position of the sun, as well as the coordinates of the point where the
sun "is shining" into the center of the earth (as described above) at
that time.

The angle can be quickly and easily found with the help of a nautical
sextant, while the information of the position of the sun will come
from nautical charts which are worth taking on any voyage (the charts
are also available online, but paper charts will come handy in case
there is no Internet connection).

Step two: measure the resulting angles. Let's say the sextant showed
50 degrees. It turns out that the angle between an imaginary straight
line extending from the center of the Earth to our yacht and the angle
of the sun above the horizon will be 90°- 50° = 40°.

Hang on! Why did we draw a line to the yacht? Why did we do this
calculation? The answer is simple: these two angles are equal because
the sun rays are parallel.

Step three: knowing the angle between our yacht and the point where
the sun is now "looking" at the center of the Earth at a right angle, you
can measure the distance from the yacht to this point.
 One degree equals to 60 nautical miles (nautical miles, not
ordinary miles, are used because it is convenient to measure
them in degrees and nautical mile is 1.832km). This means
that the distance will be 60 * 40° = 2400 nautical miles or 4444
kilometers.

We are halfway through, and the hardest part is over!

We just have to draw circles now

The data that we've just received is, of course, useful, but the distance
to a point does not tell us anything about our longitude and latitude.

In essence, it means that we can be 4444 kilometers around the very

point that we found in the charts. Therefore, all we can do for now is
draw a circle on the globe (an ordinary map won't work). We can
potentially be at any point on this circle now.
Not inside or outside the circle but at any point on the circle.

Guess what will happen next? That's right, you need to draw more
circles!

Essentially, we can again use the sun as a reference, for example, a

couple of hours after the first measurement. We measure the angle
from the horizon to the sun using a sextant, again look at the charts
and find the right point, calculate the distance to it and draw a new
circle.
On a real globe, our circles from this angle will look elongated.

Since we are a spot on the circles, our location can only be at

one of the intersections of the circles — below or above. In
practice, these intersections are geographically very far from
each other.

You can select other celestial bodies if there is data for them in the
tables, and draw more circles for greater accuracy.

Okay, what if we don't have a globe and we can't draw circles? In this
case, we have to make some rather weird assumptions…

Imagine the earth is flat

To perform the next trick, we should assume that the earth is flat. The
point is that we will be working on smaller scales, where the curvature
of the Earth is of lesser importance.

This is where it gets more interesting. We should also guess our

longitude and latitude, and put this point on a flat map. By means of
nautical charts, we have to determine the point where the sun "is
looking" at the center of the Earth at that very moment.

Knowing the coordinates of our assumed position and the distance to

the real "solar point", we can calculate what angle our sextant would
show between the horizon and the sun if we really were in that
assumed position.

There is a simple formula for this: 90 degrees minus the

distance between our assumed position and the "solar point".
We can easily find out this distance, since the estimated
longitude and latitude are known.

Having done this, we can compare the "readings" of our imaginary

sextant with the readings of our sextant in the place where we are. If
they coincide, we have guessed our position correctly!
This is a nautical sextant

The principle of double reflection is used. The first mirror is lined up

with the horizon, while the second must first be pointed at a celestial
body, then moved to coincide with the horizon using the movable
arm below. When the celestial body "touches" the horizon, you can
write down the "sight" or measure of the angle.

Usually one person takes the measurements, while the other records
the exact time and angle. It is extremely important to look at the sun
through special filters which every modern sextant is equipped with.
Otherwise, you can damage your eyes!

It is highly likely that the readings will not match. In this case, we will
repeat the same thing as with intersecting circles on the globe, but
this time we will draw intersecting lines on a flat map.

Now we have "fixed" our assumed position, let's check how much the
readings of the real and "assumed" sextants vary. Let's assume that
the sun is at 42 degrees above the horizon, and our real angle is 41,
we need to "move" our assumed position by 1 degree from the sun
(the smaller the angle, the farther from the sun, and the larger, the
closer to the sun).
On the first measurement (the yacht is on the right), the "solar" point
was far to the south east on the edge of the map. The second
measurement (on the left) shows that it moved to the west, so we
make a correction in the other direction.

Having done this, we draw a line perpendicular to the direction of the

sun. In fact, this is part of the circle that we would draw on the globe,
but the small scale of the map allows us to draw it as a line.

After some time, we carry out the same measurements and correct
the sextant data for the second assumed position (in the picture, it's
on the left), which we also randomly put on the map along with the
line.

If two lines intersect, our yacht is approximately at the point of

intersection. If not, we must have made a mistake and more lines are
required to find this intersection. More lines mean more precision: if 3
lines intersect, our position is probably somewhere inside the triangle
at the intersection.
 Bingo! You have an approximate latitude and longitude with
an average accuracy of 1 to 5 square nautical miles, if you've
done it correctly. In theory, you can achieve an accuracy of 0.1
square mile, but in practice this is rarely achieved.

Of course, this is not everything you need to know about celestial

navigation: you need to learn how to read tables and use a sextant,
take into account the movement of the yacht and make other
adjustments to the calculations. But if you could get your head around
the simplified concepts mentioned above, you know how celestial
navigation works.