Reply To: Air Navigation

[mcaminos]

Thanks JDavHouston for your comments.

I tried a couple times to do “lunars”, but the tables available with the angles between the moon and the stars and planets are not very clear to me. If you can recommend any publication to learn more about the technique, I would appreciate it.
As you probably know, the nautical almanacs stop publishing the lunar tables back in the 1910’s

On the other hand, with the bubble octant, I have tried a couple of time the meridian passage sight of the moon, using the same technique you would use with the sun to calculate latitude and longitude. I did it both when the moon crosses the local meridian during the day and also during the night, and worked pretty well.
In both cases, the sights were taken at from my home’s backyard in Miami.

The next challenge is to try the meridian passage sights of the planets and some of the navigational stars.

By the way, I also have a commercial, instrument single and muti engine pilot license. I only fly for fun around Florida and I have around 500 hours of experience.