United StatesNEW FEATURE - We want to help you make the step from using the app to finding your fix by hand. You can now print blank sight reduction and plotting forms right from the app. In addition, when you export sight data from the app it is now displayed on the plotting and sight reduction forms to show you how it is done. Celestial navigation has never been easier! With ezAlmanac and a sextant you will be finding your fix like a pro in no time! ezAlmanac will help you perform celestial navigation exactly as it has been done for over 100 years. It produces all Nautical Almanac (1961-2059) and Pub. 229 tables exactly as you are used to seeing them in the printed form. All tables can be accessed directly for manual usage if you choose to do so. Since they are produced by the software they support zooming and panning, and you can highlight in the tables to easily find the values you are looking for. Most users, however, will prefer to let ezAlmanac do all of the work. Simply enter the basic sight parameters, make and enter your observations, and ezAlmanac will do the rest. It performs all of the steps to correct your observation, find GP of the object, do the sight reduction, and plot the LOP. No steps are skipped and all details are shown. Drag the marker to where the LOPs cross in the plot and you have found your fix! Celestial navigation instructors love ezAlmanac. Values obtained from the Nautical Almanac and Pub. 229 are clearly identified on a button. When you press the button you are taken to the page that has that value with the row, column and value highlighted. Even when ezAlmanac is doing all the work, it can teach you how to do it manually using the books! ezAlmanac performs all astronomical calculations using the NOVAS 3.1 software from the US Naval Observatory (USNO) and a JPL ephemeris that covers the years 1961 through 2059. Since all calculations are performed in the software, ezAlmanac is fully functional with no dependency on the internet. Additional features: - Ability to export almanac pages to a PDF file for use outside the app - Interface with Dropbox to export sight data or pages - Compass check using celestial body - Rhumb line and great circle route calculations Please check out www.ezCelestial.com for a full description of the application and in-app help pages.
Great App
Especially for self teaching. One can check his paper work for errors.
United StatesFabulous
Terrific app. Very easy to use for taking a large number of sights in a short time. It's also a great teaching tool. All the normal books are there (nautical almanac, HO249, etc). The app will also show you, via highlights, how it computed the results (Ho, Hc, and intercept).
United StatesNice app!
This is a great way to learn how to reduce sextant observations using the Almanac tables. Tapping on a correction value sends you to the Almanac page with relevant column and row highlighted. One confusing correction is for the upper limb of the Moon. An additional 30' are subtracted, but it is not clear why from the tables alone. The official Almanac (2015 edition at least) has a paragraph on the moon altitude correction page explaining this correction. I really like plotting the Lines of Position and seeing on the map. Would be nice if the map had a scale. I'm new to sextant observations and reduction and I've learned a lot using this app. Recommend.
United StatesSimple to use and input data
I am teaching myself celestial navigation. The books I am using have problems and answers, but if I get the wrong answer I have no idea where I might have gone wrong. This app is very helpful in that it shows me all the calculated values I need to check my work along the way and with a simple tap on the screen it shows me where in the Nautical Almanac and H.O.229 volumes the data came from (with pages exactly as they look like in the books). Having all the Nautical Almanac data from 1961 to 2060 means I won't have to buy another one (the older NA data is also very helpful in verifying my answers to problems in old celestial navigation how-to books). Same with H.O 229, all 6 volumes are in there. The LOP plots are very helpful and easy to access. I just used the "Shoot" function to help me preset my sextant for this evening's practice shots and it worked like a charm. Overall, as someone new to celestial navigation, this program is very, very helpful. Once I am comfortable understanding how to do my sights and reductions (from the books) and making plots by hand, I can see how this app will make taking sights and getting a position much easier, without the risk of errors during sight reduction. My only quibbles so far are that I can't figure out how to make it work in landscape mode on my iPad and it would be nice to be able to enter watch time and watch error.
United States
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