A Star to Steer Her by: A Self-Teaching Guide to Offshore Navigation [Paperback]

Edward Bergin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1983

A Star to Steer Her By: A Self-Teaching Guide to Offshore Navigation A beginner's text, giving straightforward explanations of everything you need to know to find your way across the bay or around the globe, this book takes you step-by-step through celestial navigation. You'll learn how to use the Nautical Almanac, chronometer, sextant, star finder, and both the H.O. 229 and assumed altitude sight reduction tables. The book features specially designed celestial navigation work forms developed from the course material the author has used in his Weems & Plath-sponsored navigation course. 1983. 181 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Work forms. Appendices. 8½ × 11. Paper. 978-0-87033-309-7. $18.50 ISBN: 978-0-87033-309-7

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Maritime Pr/Tidewater Pub; 1st edition (November 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870333097
• ISBN-13: 978-0870333095
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,030,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Has a troubling diagram, July 26, 2006

By 

J. Shields (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Star to Steer Her by: A Self-Teaching Guide to Offshore Navigation (Paperback)

The book does an adequate job at teaching the "how to do" celestial navigation, cookbook style. The "theory" section on "how it works" bothers me because it uses a diagram where the earth is shown as flat and the star so close to the earth that it erroneously explains the difference in angle (as you move away from the position directly under the star) by simple trigonometry. In reality, stars are so far away that light rays from them are essentially parallel no matter where you are on earth (the sun and moon are closer and need a parallax correction, but this is a minor adjustment), so the difference in angle is due to the curvature of the earths surface. Understanding that the difference in angle is due to the curvature of the earth is so essential to understanding celestial navigation and why you need spherical trigonometry to solve this, I think the book does a disservice to the student by over simplifying it.