This free course will teach you Celestial Navigation. It explains the concepts in a clear and understandable way. It contains all the reference materials you will need to learn and it will show you some cost cutting methods for keeping the price down.

• Completely free
• Clear, straight-forward, practical explanations
• Study at your own speed
• Both mathematical and non-mathematical explanations
• All sample reference materials down-loadable for course
• Exercises for self assessment
• Cost saving tips and tricks for Celestial Navigation

All the Questions

Is it difficult?

The answer to this is really 'NO!'. There are a few techniques you need to learn and then it becomes easy. Getting really good at it takes a lifetime but being competent is fairly easy.

Is it really free?

Yes, this course is completely free. Use it whenever and however you want. Even better, some of the downloads are going to be valuable to you for as long as you keep navigating this way. Also, some of the tips and tricks are going to spare you from spending a lot of money that you don't need to!

How does Celestial Navigation work?

Celestial Navigation is a technique for finding out where you are. You take a 'sight' on the sun, moon, star or planet. From this sight you are able to calculate a 'line of position'. A line of position is simply a line on which you now know that you are.

So, there is quite a bit of mathematics?

Well, there is quite a bit of fairly complex mathematics involved in Celestial Navigation. Luckily for most of us, techniques have been developed so that we don't have to do the mathematics ourselves. We just look up the answers in certain publications. For those of you who are interested, the mathematics are fully described in this course. Most courses assume that mathematics will be too confusing for students, but this course doesn't. Find out about the mathematics if you want to. Don't if you don't want to.

What else do I need?

Well, to learn the theory you will need nothing else apart from this course. If you want to do some actual Celestial navigation then you will need a sextant. You will also need some yearly publications such as the Nautical Almanac. This course will show you where you can download most of the printed material at no cost. So, in fact, all you need is a sextant.

How much does a sextant cost?

How long is a piece of string? Useful sextants start at about 150 Euros/150 Dollars and go up to...well lots. It's a pretty good idea to use a few before spending money on your own. Lots of sailing schools will let you do this if you are on another course or if you ask really nicely.