Need celestial nav software

[rlevin73]

Can anyone recommend a not expensive celestial navigation software so this novice sextant sailor can begin to fathom the way? I have an IPad and an Apple 6 smartphone.
Thanks

[svHyLyte]

You might take a look at Celestaire

[Adelie]

Check out the NavList, they can point you to a whole bunch of free stuff.

http://www.fer3.com/arc/

[Stu Jackson]

When "spreadsheets" first became commercially available, I jumped at the opportunity they offered in our engineering office. So much time was wasted on doing long, involved calculations by hand, more often when needing to make changes which ALWAYS happens.


Then I learned the "dangers" of those spreadsheets. Engineers used them but eventually some didn't know how to do those same calculations longhand, nor did they cross check the answers to see if they made sense.



I guess that's where GIGO came into the picture, even after mainframes were replaced by desktop computers!


Point being that perhaps you'll consider doing the longhand versions at least a few times before you jump into computerizing it.


Good luck, a fascinating topic.


Let us know what you find that works for you, feedback always helps.


Celestaire is my Go To for all things celestial.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Point being that perhaps you'll consider doing the longhand versions at least a few times before you jump into computerizing it.
.

I actually found the opposite learning, let a computer do the sums so you can focus on getting some sights in seeing the results straight away to gain a bit of confidence so you can be fairly sure the first step is close, then go on to calculating by hand knowing if the answer is way out then it's probably the sums, not the sextant.

Some handy stuff in here -
http://www.backbearing.com/

And opencpn has a plugin - https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/plugins/celestialnav.html

[Foolish]

You'll find a great Sextant Users Guide for free on Backbearing.com Enjoy

[El Pinguino]

Not software but if you really want to know what you are doing and why you are doing it - rather than just pressing buttons - try this... https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5blh1rgvi...ation.pdf?dl=0