Celestial navigation is a technique for determining one’s geographic position by the observation of identified stars, identified planets, the Sun, and the Moon. This subject has a multitude of refinements which, although valuable to a professional navigator, tend to obscure the basic principles. I describe these principles, give an analytical solution of the classical two-star-sight problem without any dependence on prior knowledge of position, and include several examples. Some approximations and simplifications are made in the interest of clarity.
Topics
Celestial mechanics
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A dihedral angle is the “hinge” angle between two intersecting planes. It is measured by the plane angle between two lines that pass through a common point on the line of intersection of the planes, one line lying in each plane and perpendicular to the line of intersection of the two planes.
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A primitive technique for determining longitude without the use of an accurate time piece exploits this parallactic effect (“linear distance” technique).
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© 2004 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2004
American Association of Physics Teachers
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