Sun Almanac
First of all let me say this is not a comprehensive Nautical Almanac. If you are the sort of navigator who shoots multiple starsights at dawn and dusk, and works out his Longitude from Lunar Distance, this is not the Almanac for you.
If however you are new to Astro Navigation, or are content to establish your position solely from the Sun, this Almanac and the associated Sight Reduction Tables will suffice.
To reduce a Sunsight the only things you need to know are the height of the Sun above the horizon, the precise time of your sight, and the Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) and Declination of the Sun. Your sextant, a decent watch, this Almanac and the correct Sight Reduction Tables for your Latitude will give you all information you need.
Be sure to download the Almanac for the correct year! I've left previous years available in case someone wants to re-work some old sights.
The files are ~270KB each.
The Almanac includes pages for GHA Interpolation, Declination Corrections and Sextant corrections. These do not go out of date.
2011 Sun Almanac
2010 Sun Almanac
If you're curious to know how popular my almanac is becoming, the following statistics have been lifted from my Statcounter account:-
2010 - 48 downloads (site only went 'live' in October).
2011 - 412 downloads.
2012 - 618 downloads to the end of March.
If you require a more comprehensive Nautical Almanac have a look on the Links page where you will find a number of suggestions.
Finally, just in case you think astronavigation is too difficult, here's a picture of my son taken when he was 10. He's 'shooting the sun' with my 1939 Husun vernier sextant. We then went on to reduce the second sight of the day for our Sun-run-Sun fix.
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Sight Reduction Form
On one side you can reduce two sights and on the reverse you will find a plotting sheet. Ideal for that "Sun-run-Sun" sight. Download.
Celestial Navigation
