If you take a good note of the time at which you measure that angle (also call the elevation ), you can derive extremely useful information about where you are at a certain time. So, although Virtual Sextant will not teach how to use, in practice, a sextant, it may help and facilitate the learning process with an actual sextant!!! 1.3 how does it work: the Virtual Sextant and any actual sextant work according to the same principle: it measures the elevation of sun (or any other celestial body) above the horizon, such an elevation being expressed in degrees.Ģ Practically speaking, Virtual Sextant and an actual sextant will bring the sun down to the horizon. What do you do in such a case? If you can t determine your position, you have a problem, and probably a big one. The reason is very simple: the system can breakdown, there s no power or a nasty wave floods the electric system. 1.2 why use a sextant: It may sound weird nowadays with GPS and satnav to want to learn how to use a sextant.

I will write a more exhaustive and comprehensive tutorial on that subject later. The theory of celestial navigation and sextants will not be dealt with here.

This tutorial will endeavour to be practical.

Introduction Ilan Papini s VIRTUAL SAILOR 7 TUTORIAL USING THE VIRTUAL SEXTANT WITH VS7 By Frankie the Funky Sailor 1.1 Purpose of this tutorial: The purpose of this tutorial is to give some information about using the virtual sextant (the Virtual Sextant ) designed by Ilan Papini for his Virtual Sailor 7 ( VS7 ), and how to use the information obtained with the Virtual Sextant.

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