ASA 117

This basic celestial navigation class teaches the theory and practice to determine latitude and longitude at sea using the noon sun and the star Polaris (a.k.a. the North Star) with just a small eleven-page booklet, a sextant, a watch and simple arithmetic. Experienced celestial navigators and beginners alike will enjoy this simple alternative to the intercept method-one that doesn’t depend on sight reduction tables and yields latitude and longitude directly without plotting. Naval History buffs will thrill to the romance and adventure of determining their latitude in the tradition of the Vikings and ancient Hawaiians. This course is a great introduction to the joys of navigating “celestially” without the rigors of ASA 107, and the skills learned make a nice backup in case you lose your GPS while on a voyage out of site of land.

Printed textbook by Doug MacPhearson included.

Additional Text used: Latitude & Longitude from the Noon Sun by John Karl
  

 •    Prerequisite: None