OpenCPN

Celestial Navigation

Looking for the Celestial Navigation Plugin?

Background

Celestial navigation a. k. k astronavigation is about:

  • Identification of celestial bodies.

  • Nautical Almanac, including sun and moon phenomena.

  • Sights: correction of the observed altitude and calculation of line of position (type of LoP: Marcq Saint Hilaire).

  • Celestial Fix. GPX file output that serves as an input to OpenCPN. Complete solution: fix, circles of position, confidence ellipse.

Some more backround: http://straitofmagellan.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/celestial-navigation-101-lesson-1.html

More in-depth explanation: https://www.mediafire.com/file/pp89of9q9fk4rbi/rotmatricesCoP.zip/file

The astronavigation Windows package.

astronavigation

The Running Fix problem is easily solved using Astronavigation.exe

circles of equal altitude

Fix and confidence ellipse. Coastal scale.

Software is available for free, for non-commercial use at: http://sites.google.com/site/navigationalalgorithms/ (Only for Windows)