Traditional Vs Technological Methods Of Determining Position At Sea

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compass e.g. If it intersects at 84, you're facing 84 degrees Southeast.

The advantages of using compass is that is does not require any electrical power to function therefore is not affected by loss of power.

The disadvantage of using a compass is without a map, a compass will only show you north, and that's it.

Sextant

A sextant is an instrument for determining the angle between the horizon and a celestial body such as the Sun, the Moon, or a star that is used in celestial navigation.

When taking the altitude you need to bring the celestial body down to the horizon' when seen through the sextant. This means that the reflection of the body, as seen through the sextant, is going to be slowly lowered down to a point when it is just touching the horizon. This will be done by first setting the sextant to zero slowly and smoothly moving the arm of the sextant, while keeping the reflection of the body in sight within the instrument.

When the navigator is pleased that ...

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carefully over short distances,

The disadvantage of using this method is that new positions are calculated only from previous positions, the errors of the process will increase affecting the position fix

Celestial Investigation

Celestial Navigation is navigation by observation of the positions of celestial bodies, inclusive of the sun, moon, and planets. In order to use celestial investigation you will need a sextant

The advantage of using this method is that it needs nothing electronic, so you can do it regardless of battery life or the presence of electricity.

The disadvantage of using this method when the skies are cloudy, as you need to be able to see the stars or sun ...

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