Last night at the SEWING club meeting we talked briefly on Celestial navigation. I thought this would be a good place for those of us who want to learn and those of us who may already know the art to ask questions and share our knowledge.

Chris mentioned that received a book and a sextant this winter and his goal is to be able to do take some sightings during the Queens Cup this summer. I bought a book this winter as well. I started reading it and realized that even if I know how to sight from the stars, I don't know which star is which. I found this book, The Stars: A New Way to See Them by H.A. Rey. (H. A. Rey also wrote the Curious George books) This book is easy to read. I haven't spent too much time out star gazing as the clear nights are also the coldest this time of year and I am really sick of winter as it is.

For Celestial Navigation I picked up Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmenby Mary Blewitt.

Good thread idea Paul.

Here's the link to that Stellarium program I was talking about. It's free and is a really nice program.

http://www.stellarium.org/

I've been going out on the few tolerably warm, clear evenings with my binoculars to take sightings and identify objects. I'm interested to know how to take positions from the sun as I feel confident in my abilities to locate that celestial object

Worsley did it on the trip to South Georgia... took sightings only once every few days as the sun poked through the clouds and landed them on a tiny island 800 miles away in ridiculously rough conditions. For whatever reason, the idea of being that self-reliant is very appealing to me.

Chris wrote:
For whatever reason, the idea of being that self-reliant is very appealing to me.

That is a key point. For the same reason I am taking a Medic Emergency Responder course right now. You never know what may happen out there, I would just like to be prepared as I can be.

Plus I am a bit of a geek and "puzzle" of fixing my location by the stars is just the sort of challenge I like.

Anybody spot Comet Lulin yet? I've been out with my binocs and have not been able to spot it yet. Not sure if there's too much light pollution on the southern end of the city or if I'm just looking in the wrong spot. I found Saturn and Ceres. It's supposed to be just to the right of Saturn from what I've read.

I can't even find it on Stellarium.

I am completely lost when it comes to finding stars, this is going to be more work than I anticipated.

And you may not even know the half of it with that statement. As I mentioned to you guys last Thursday night, I got to 'play' with this issue many years ago. Quickly decided to move on to learning other things. Best of luck to you. Perhaps once you have it mastered, we can all meet some night on the lake, and you can give us a brief demonstration?

Probably won't find Lulin on Stellarium. It's a comet that won't be back until human kind is long gone.. They suggest it will be over a million years before this comet re appears...

Well I will try and find Saturn and then work on the comet. I will consult said program. Hopefully I can see it from the deck as I am not climbing the hill at night till it warms up.

Bought the folks a telescope a few years ago and just got it back as they never used it. I assembled it for the first time a couple weeks ago hoping to catch the lunar eclipse but it set to soon for us.

I realized that after I went back to look. I don't know why they can put in a comet, they seem to have everything else.

Is Lulin visible to the naked eye?

Well the Stellarium download is curently choking the shit out of my dial-up. Over an hour and it is at 4%.

Went to Wunderground's Star chart and found Saturn @ about E 119deg at 2200. I tried to get the pic here. Now if I can figure out where that is.