Hello Samuel:
About two years ago I went on your same
learning curve. I had the benefit of taking a brief course at Mystic Seaport (by
FER), which got me started. After that I taught myself. My math skills are
pretty good...but not that much math is required. Don't use a spread
sheet until you have done a large number of problems by hand , following
the steps in any one of a number of books. The noon sight is easiest to do
first, and you can estimate longitude.
At my risk of hurting someone's
feelings, I going to recommend the most readable books for ME. I use HO 249
which requires a yearly purchase (I like books) , but it is easy to use with the
Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation volumes 2 or 3 whichever is
appropriate. These volumes don't go out of date.
I recommend Celestial Navigation in a Nutshell by
Hewitt Schlereth because the text is very clear and the drawings are very
fine. A close second, a little more basic I think, is Sunsight Navigation
Celestial for Sailors by Arthur Birney. After the basics are
mastered, John Karl's book ,Celestial Navigation in the GPS Age can't be
beat. Karl's book goes into greater depth, more complex problems,history,
etc. Where I am now, I use Karl's book frequently because it is so
complete.
There are many other books. I'd
recommend against Mary Blewitt's book because it is so concise, in my
beginning, that I could not follow it all. Don't
misunderstand, her book is quite complete, but I had problems studying
it.....just me.
Try to find a local course......easiest way to
start. Some libraries have "Celestial Navigation" books. Look a book over
before you purchase it. Mystic Seaport and other museums have them to look
over.
Good luck.
Bruce
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 2:09 PM
Subject: [NavList] Site reduction
assisted by spreadsheet?
I'm new to celestial navigation having recently purchased a Davis Mark 25
sextant and wanting very much to be able to do both a sun sight reduction and
a intercept plot.
Presently, I'm experimenting with spreadsheets obtained from http://www.navigation-spreadsheets.com/
but find that it is necessary to use several spreadsheets to obtain the
figures for the intercept plot. (Also, the format for entering angle readings
is tedious).
It would be more efficient to use only one spreadsheet for a sight
reduction.
Can you direct me toward one such spreadsheet?
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