Celestial Navigation: A Complete Home Study Course, Second Edition - Softcover

Burch, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0914025465 ISBN 13: 9780914025467

Publisher: Starpath Publications, 2015

Synopsis

This book has been used for 30 years, updated periodically as needed. More than 20,000 students have successfully learned ocean navigation from these materials and gone on to cross oceans or circumnavigate the globe.

This book covers how to find position at sea from timed sextant sights of the sun, moon, stars, and planets plus other routine and special procedures of safe, efficient offshore navigation. No previous navigation experience is required. The only math involved is arithmetic (adding and subtracting angles and times).

This is a practical, how-to-do-it book, which also includes clear explanations of how it works and how to do it well. Plus this book includes other crucial factors of ocean navigation besides just finding out where you are from the stars, such as logbook procedures, dead reckoning, error analysis, route planning, and more. At the end of this book, you will be ready for ocean navigation.

The book includes: text, practice problems, tables selections, detailed glossary, and full solutions. Printable work forms, plotting sheets, and other resources are available at no charge from starpath.com/celnavbook.

Our Fit-Slope Method presented in this textbook is cited in the latest (2017) edition of Bowditch:
"The common method of averaging sights is the Fit-Slope Method, e.g. Burch, D. 2015, Celestial Navigation, Second Edition (Seattle, Starpath Publications) pp. 176-177." --Bowditch, American Practical Navigator, NGA Pub 9. Section 1805.

Preface to the Second Edition.

We are pleased to say that after ten more years of using this text we do not find reason to change the basic approach and methods of the teaching. We still use most of the same examples, which are now quite old, but that is the beauty of celestial navigation. It has not changed, so we do not benefit in any way from making all new examples, which would bring with them more chance of error in a book of many numbers.

We have, however, notably improved and expanded the book. Each section has been updated and reformatted for a clearer presentation, often in response to student questions over the years. New graphics have been added and older ones all updated. There is much new content in the text, especially in the In-Depth chapter, including more detailed discussion of the sailings and more background on the principles. New sections were added on general ocean navigation and optimizing the fixes. We have also updated the electronic navigation section, as most ocean navigators will also be using other tools besides celestial.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Also  by David Burch

How to use Plastic Sextants -- with application to metal sextants and a review of sextant piloting

and

The Star Finder Book -- A guide to the many uses of the 2102-D Star Finder

About the Author

David Burch, PhD, FRIN, is the Director of Starpath School of Navigation, which after 26,000 classroom students since 1979 switched to all online training in 2008. He is the author of 13 books and hundreds of magazine articles. He received the Institute of Navigation's Superior Achievement Award for outstanding performance as a practicing navigator. He is Fellow of the US Institute of Navigation as well as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation in London. He has extensive ocean sailing experience covering much of the globe, and once held an elapsed time record for the Victoria to Maui Yacht Race that lasted for 16 years. On the academic side, he is a past Fulbright Scholar with a PHD in physics.

Edition details

• Publisher: Starpath Publications
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0914025465
• ISBN 13: 9780914025467
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 296