This document provides step-by-step instructions for using star sights to determine a ship's position. It explains that during nautical twilight both the horizon and stars are visible, allowing measurement of star positions. The key steps are:
1) Calculate nautical twilight time from the Nautical Almanac to determine when to start observations.
2) Use a star finder to select three bright stars with well-separated azimuths that will be visible. Note their approximate azimuths and altitudes.
3) During nautical twilight, use a sextant to measure the altitudes of the selected stars as they become visible in the sky.
This document provides step-by-step instructions for using star sights to determine a ship's position. It explains that during nautical twilight both the horizon and stars are visible, allowing measurement of star positions. The key steps are:
1) Calculate nautical twilight time from the Nautical Almanac to determine when to start observations.
2) Use a star finder to select three bright stars with well-separated azimuths that will be visible. Note their approximate azimuths and altitudes.
3) During nautical twilight, use a sextant to measure the altitudes of the selected stars as they become visible in the sky.
This document provides step-by-step instructions for using star sights to determine a ship's position. It explains that during nautical twilight both the horizon and stars are visible, allowing measurement of star positions. The key steps are:
1) Calculate nautical twilight time from the Nautical Almanac to determine when to start observations.
2) Use a star finder to select three bright stars with well-separated azimuths that will be visible. Note their approximate azimuths and altitudes.
3) During nautical twilight, use a sextant to measure the altitudes of the selected stars as they become visible in the sky.
This document provides step-by-step instructions for using star sights to determine a ship's position. It explains that during nautical twilight both the horizon and stars are visible, allowing measurement of star positions. The key steps are:
1) Calculate nautical twilight time from the Nautical Almanac to determine when to start observations.
2) Use a star finder to select three bright stars with well-separated azimuths that will be visible. Note their approximate azimuths and altitudes.
3) During nautical twilight, use a sextant to measure the altitudes of the selected stars as they become visible in the sky.
tons of resources that deals with the calculation part.
Be it Longitude by chronometer or intercept
method calculations.
Most of us know all these calculations but
only that much. But how can we use these to calculate the sight ?
In this post, I will show you step wise
procedure to use the star sight to calculate your position on board.
Let us start.
Basics of celestial sight
I have covered the basics of the celestial
navigation in a different article. You can read this article by clicking on here.
And if you have read it you would know that
celestial navigation is based on calculation of zenith distance and azimuth of the celestial body.
Zenith distance and altitude of the celestial
body are inter-related. Here is the relation.
Zenith distance + True Altitude = 90 Degrees.
All we want is True altitude of the celestial
body which can be calculated by measuring the altitude of the celestial body by a sextant and applying few corrections to the measured altitude by sextant.
I wonʼt go more deep into the calculations
part. I assume you already know that.
Sextant altitude is measured by bringing the
celestial body on the userʼs visible horizon and reading the altitude from the sextant.
Here is a video that explains the use of
sextant.
Step 1: Calculate the twilight time
So far so good. For measuring the sextant
altitude two things should be visible.
Celestial body Horizon
But the issue with the star sight is that, stars
are visible at night and horizon is visible when there is daylight.
Or, when the horizon is clearly visible, there
arenʼt any stars in the sky and when the stars are visible, the horizon isnʼt visible.
Then how do we measure the sextant altitude
of the stars?
Nautical twilight is the time when some stars
may be visible and during the hours of twilight there is still some daylight that horizon is visible too.
The name “Nautical twilight” is given because
this is the time when mariners can see both the horizon and stars and is ideal for the star sight.
But how to know the time for the Nautical
twilight?
The twilight time is given in the nautical
almanac.
In the morning, the period from
complete darkness to the sunrise is divided into three twilights.
We are interested in the period of Nautical
twilight.
With respect to times mentioned in the
nautical almanac, this would be the period between the time of “nautical twilight” and “Civil twilight”.
So for morning star sights, we need to
calculate the nautical twilight time from the almanac. That would be the time we need to start looking for the visible stars.
For the evening twilight, here is how the
period from sunset to complete darkness is divided.
So for evening twilight, can you guess what
time you should start looking for the stars for star sight?
Or in other words, what is the time for start of
nautical twilight?
Yes, you got it right !!!
Civil twilight time mentioned in the almanac is
the time of “end of civil twilight” and “start of the nautical twilight”.
For evening star sights, this is the time we
would be interested in.
The twilight time given in the Almanac are
LMT. This need to be converted to the shipʼs time so that we know at what time (shipʼs time) will be nautical twilight.
Let us say the DR position is
Latitude: 25 degrees 00 Minutes (North)
Longitude: 070 Degrees 00 Minutes (East)
Shipʼs Time is: GMT + 5 Hours
Date: 19th January 2018, Evening star sight
From the Nautical Almanac, get the time of
evening civil twilight (start of Nautical twilight) for 25 degrees North.
You will need to interpolate as the times are
for 20 degrees North and 30 degrees north. Here is the calculation to calculate civil twilight time as per the shipʼs time.
So in this case we need to be ready with the
sextant at 1720 Hrs shipʼs time (1320 Hrs GMT) looking for the stars.
Step 2: Find the information on
available stars
If you see the time period of the nautical
twilight (start and end of nautical twilight) from the nautical almanac, you would note it to be less than 30 minutes in most cases.
Ideally we would have around 10 minutes of
the times to take the sextant altitude of the stars.
If we donʼt know where to look for in the sky,
or which star we are planning to measure the sextant altitude for, we will never be able to take the star sight.
In other words, period of nautical twilight is
never enough to look for the stars, identify the star and measure itʼs sextant altitude.
Remember that we need identify at least three
stars separated perfectly from each other (close to 120 degrees difference in azimuth) for a perfect star sight.
So what do we do?
We need to know before hand about
Which stars would be available for star
sight The stars we plan to use for the star sight Approx Azimuth of these stars so that we know which direction to look for these stars Approx altitude of these stars so that we know how high in the sky to look for these stars
This is where star finder (NP 323) is used to
find this information.
NP 323 (Star finder) consists of one sheet for
the layout of the stars. This sheet has two sides, one for Northern hemisphere and other side for southern hemisphere.
It also consists of transparent templates for
different latitudes of the observer.
The instructions for use of star finder are
clearly given on the star finder sheet.
In a nutshell, here is what we need to do.
Calculate the LHA Aries for the time of
observation. As we discussed we need to take the star sight at start of Nautical twilight. For evening sights this is Civil twilight time in the Almanac.
Choose the transparent template nearest to
the DR latitude. So if our DR latitude is 27 degrees, we need to choose 30 degrees template.
We need to place the transparent template on
the star finder sheet as per the instructions above.
The stars inside the web of lines are the stars
that would be visible to you at the time of nautical twilight.
Now we need to choose the best 3 stars
among these stars.
What do we mean the best stars for star
sight? The criteria is
The star need to a bright star so that it is
easily visible during the twilight, and The azimuth of the three chosen stars should form as close equilateral triangle as possible
Let me explain these two points.
The brightness of the stars is denoted by
different symbols of the stars in the star finder.
All these stars are visible to the human eye
but considering that there isnʼt complete darkness during twilight, we must try to choose the stars with magnitude 2.0 or less (preferably with magnitude less than 1.0).
Apart from brightness of the stars, we also
need to take into account the azimuth of the stars.
We do not want to select stars with azimuth
line parallel to the other selected stars.
This is because then the position lines that we
will get from the star sight will be close to parallel to each other. And that is not good for getting the position of the ship.
For example, in the below configuration star
Vega and star Altair both are bright stars but we cannot choose both of these.
This is because the azimuth of the Vega is
220 degrees and azimuth of Altair is 230 degrees. Both of these stars are separated by only 10 degrees.
If we choose these two stars the position lines
that we will get from these stars will be separted by only 10 degrees.
So if I have to pick three stars from the below,
I would pick
Arcturus with Azimuth around 105
degrees Alioth with Azimuth around 160 degrees Vega with Azimuth around 220 degrees
Apart from azimuth, we also need to note
down the approx altitude of the selected star.
For example in below picture, the approx
altitude of Vega is 55 degrees.
So with the help of star finder (NP 323), we
will be able to choose three stars that we need for star sight.
Also we will have the approx azimuth and
altitude of these stars.
Step 3: Find the selected stars in the
sky
Now we know the stars we need to star sight
and its location in the sky. So when the nautical twilight starts, be ready with the sextant to measure the altitude of the selected stars as these become visible.
Keep on looking in the direction the azimuth
of the selected star. For example from the bridge wing gyro repeater, look where is 105 degrees.