Taking the Stars

Name: Taking the Stars
ISBN: 9781575240954

4/5

(3 votes)

Taking the Stars: Celestial Navigation from Argonauts to Astronauts is the definitive study of the evolution of celestial navigation instruments from the ancient kamal to the modern-day global positioning systems.

Taking the Stars is written in a style su.

Format: 222 pages, Hardcover
First published: November 1, 1998
Publishers: Mariners' Museum·Krieger Pub. Co.

Outstanding reference on old and new instruments for determining where you are in the world, whether on land or water. Peter's work is very readable and I wish I had had a chance to meet him before he passed away.

Although not cheap this book is worth every penny to anyone interested in the history of navigation and the navigators instruments themselves. lavishly illustrated with colour photographs and drawings the text is authorative and leaves little of the subject un covered.

Centuries ago, Arab (or perhaps Chinese) mariners began using an instrument to help find their latitude, called a kamal (or in Chinese chhien hsing pan), which was nothing more complicated than a credit card-sized rectangle of wood or ivory. The navigator held the kamal before him so that the bottom edge rested on the horizon and the top edge on a star.