This may help you Everett. It is from Pewaukee but it should give you a general idea. BTW, for this it looks like Ceres isn't visible to the naked eye.

I can't get the first one any bigger so I will try a different format.

That didn't work so here is the link

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3525/3307760592_3ae2bb3ce9_o.jpg

2nd night looking for this thing and still no comet. I've got some 10x binocs with 50 aperture. It should be enough.. but it might be a little hazy tonight. I can make out Saturn and Leo just fine. I located Regulus and it should be on a path between Leo and Regulus, just to the Northeast of Leo right now. Hopefully it will clear up later tonight...

Thanks Paul, that looks like the same area shown on Weather Underground for Saturn. Now I know better were to look, up and to the East of saturn correct? It showed Saturn coming into best view for me around 10 and I fell asleep about 9 watching tv.

I will swill a bunch of coffee tonight and try again. Stellarium timed out after a couple hours. I will try it again but it may not download for me till we get the dish.

i notice no one has mentioned doing noon sun sights/shots. i'd think that would be the easiest way to begin learning celestial nav. i like steering by the stars, but imagine how hard it's going to be to shoot them at nite on a bouncing boat.

No doubt -- the sun is quite a bit easier to find. I have a sextant now which I was given for my birthday, but it seems to be more of a decorative one. I guess it's functional, but it's brass, heavy and not very wieldy. I'm going to order up the white plastic one that most people say suits well for 40 bucks.

I guess the reason I was looking into the night time celestial objects was because I wanted to try it out on the queens cup, which is an overnight race. I'll be practicing for starters with the sun here from the stability of my back porch, and also try out the usefulness of my brass, decorative sextant which I hope to replace soon with the more useful plastic one. I'm taking some time off of school as I'm nearing stress overload so I'm hoping to get some practice in.

Here's an introductory e-book that I came across and have found to be good so far.
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I came across this website today and it really gives some good examples of CN.

www.efalk.org/Navigation/