Celestial Navigation Update

Now that we are deep into our science we are taking a break from celestial navigation, but we have come so far!  All of us now understand how celestial navigation works using a sextant, a chronometer and the nautical almanac.  We can also calculate latitude and longitude using only a local noon sun sighting. 

Our precision and accuracy have been increasing every day.  On the first day we were lucky to calculate that we were near Hawaii in general, but by the fourth day our calculations were within a few miles of our actual location.  Overall the class has been a lot of fun. Yesterday we sighted in the afternoon, after the sun had already peaked. By 3pm the sun was losing a degree of altitue every five minutes. Its been so interesting to learn more about how the sun (and other celestial bodies) move through the sky and how that information can be used to navigate.  We will pick our studies back up after we cross the equator and finish our science.

Although it is not a competition, shout out to Amrita, Autumn, Kathy, Mike, Heather and Michael for being the most accurate and precise navigators in the class up to now...