Tag Archives: Navigation

Blog Post 2: Celestial Navigation

In order to navigate the vast seas when traveling in today’s time, we can easily use modern technology to pinpoint exactly where we are in the ocean. A prime example of this type of technology would be GPS systems. However, GPS systems haven’t been around forever. Celestial navigation is the art of determining both the […] Continue reading

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Sextants – Then and Now

Humans have navigated the open ocean for thousands of years; among the first to do so were the aboriginal Australians and Polynesian seafarers about 50,000 years ago. More recently–but still a few hundred years ago–celestial navigation by Western cultures relied on a navigator’s understanding of the stars (and other heavenly bodies, including the sun), the […] Continue reading

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What is celestial navigation?

Those who use the placement of stars in the night sky in order to determine where to go to are using a practice called celestial navigation. Ancient peoples noticed the patterns associated with stars in the night sky and were able to study and record them in order to teach the following generations how toContinue reading “What is celestial navigation?” Continue reading

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Celestial Navigation throughout History

Like many other technologies, one might assume that celestial navigation has only been truly developed efficiently in recent times with our technology. But you may be surprised to know that many of the techniques we use today were invented centuries ago, or even thousands of years! Celestial navigation is the practice of using angles betweenContinue reading “Celestial Navigation throughout History” Continue reading

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Celestial Navigation

Celestial navigation is the practice of navigating from one place to another using celestial bodies as a guide. Prior to the invention of GPS, people would use the position of the stars in relation to themselves as a method of orienting oneself to their destination. The process is simple in concept – the navigator uses … Continue reading Celestial Navigation Continue reading

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The Map in the Stars

Getting around is always a difficult task. Even with supercomputers that fit in the palm of our hand and tell us how to get literally anywhere, we still get lost. That being said, it was much more difficult to navigate when all we had were the stars in the sky. Celestial navigation is a craft … Continue reading The Map in the Stars Continue reading

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The first navigational tool

Image from kaloujm.com People have been using the sky as their source of navigation for years, and one of the first tools made for the purpose of aiding in navigation (that wasn’t a body part!) was the kamal.  The exact date is unsure, but it’s estimated that this tool came into use around the fifth […] Continue reading

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The Celestial Compass

For millennia, humans have known that the movements of certain celestial objects repeat in a predictable pattern, and for millennia humans have mapped the movements of stars and other objects in the heavens and tried to make predictions about the cycles for these objects.  Most humans probably didn’t care about what might be up in … Continue reading The Celestial Compass Continue reading

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Navigation by the Stars

History Before the time of GPS devices, navigation apps, and even before the Earth was known to be round, humans were using the heavens to find their way around this hardly discovered planet. While land navigation could be made fairly easy by dead reckoning and using landmarks, this technique became infinitely more difficult once humans began […] Continue reading

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