Sextant

[kloudie1]

To continue beating this fatigued horse (Pegasus, maybe?) I bought one of these for the coffee table.. after adjusting it, I find that it is pretty accurate and I've used it to figure angles between things and the height of things like a masthead above water.. about "hand sized"..

Vintage Brass Sextant

Amazing deals on this Brass Sextant at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[Ilanortho]

I like the idea of learning a skill just to learn the skill. @Ilanortho please share with your friend ”Go for it!”
We go around only once.

Absolutely!!!!!

 

[cb32863]

Thank you everyone for your answers; I will pass them on to him. I personally will look into the US Power Squadron course. You have been very helpful.

ASA 107 is Celestial Nav course as well, there is an online one too.....
Can't find the link though. Starpath maybe has one. Online nautical almanac at thenauticalalmanac.com.

Funny thing. When I took my ASA107, we used Google Skymap to find our stars. Being in a large city we had a lot of light pollution but, still made me chuckle.

 

[cb32863]

Astronomy..... get the SKY VIEW LITE APP... IT'S FREE !!!! names EVERYTHING in the heavens and shows their arc of trajectory....

FYI, you don't use a sextant to find stars and planets.......

 

[FastOlson]

To continue beating this fatigued horse (Pegasus, maybe?) I bought one of these for the coffee table.. after adjusting it, I find that it is pretty accurate and I've used it to figure angles between things and the height of things like a masthead above water.. about "hand sized"..

Vintage Brass Sextant

Amazing deals on this Brass Sextant at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

A great book for these uses is:
Shoreline and Sextant: Practical Coastal Navigation
by John Budlong.

Out of print, so some searching will be needed.
Well written and understandable for beginners. (well, imho)

 

[sailme88]

FYI, you don't use a sextant to find stars and planets.......

YUP,, got the FYI.... But it was/is an ASTRONOMY related topic... hence the stars and planets....

 

[MitchM]

i have a beautiful old US Navy sextant w papers showing it was issued and used in WW II in the pacific. i took the US power squadron navigation course which came w a great book. a favorite thing to do: go out on the boat at sunset, and wonder where all in the world that sextant has been , and if it's disappointed to now end up just 5 miles from shore in erie bay .

 

[BigEasy]

I bought one of these for the coffee table.. after adjusting it, I find that it is pretty accurate.

Vintage Brass Sextant

Amazing deals on this Brass Sextant at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

Claude, who would have thought that Harbor Freight sells sextants!