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Here's my review of Luis Soltero's presentation on the StarPilot from the
Celestial Navigation Weekend at Mystic Seaport back in June, 2006:
 "Luis Soltero,  mathematician, software developer, and a highly experienced
sailor, delivered an  hour-long presentation on the development of his
StarPilot navigation software.  His philosophy for this product makes a lot
of sense. It runs on off-the-shelf  calculators (the excellent TI-89 is the
current platform) and provides the  navigator with the perfect celestial
backup. He assumes that very few navigators  will practice enough to be
proficient with paper tables (or even have them  onboard) when an emergency
demands them, so he has designed the StarPilot  software to be intuitive,
easy-to-use, and completely independent of other  sources of navigational
information. There is also a PC version which is essentially an emulation of
the calculator version. Luis has created an  excellent sight planning tool
for selecting twilight stars in advance. He also includes a simple tool for
working lunars, but this is more of a "just for fun" tool without sufficient
accuracy. The StarPilot software includes a long-term almanac, but I should
say that I am skeptical of its accuracy outside the twenty year period from
1990 to 2010. That, of course, does not diminish its practical  utility at
all, and it's a great piece of work. It was fascinating to learn  about it
from the developer himself."

I do strongly recommend it (except for the minor issue with historical data
as mentioned above). On their web site
http://www.starpilotllc.com/starpilot_pc.htm you can request a trial code
for the PC version to check out its functionality. I don't remember whether
it handles bubble sextant Sun sights, but I suspect that it does. You could
also email him and ask.

Luis' logic for using the TI-89 is quite sensible: it's standard
off-the-shelf hardware, available in practically any electronics store on
Earth. The thing is nearly indestructible, but if you should happen to lose
it, you can just buy a new one and re-install the software in a few minutes.

 -FER


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