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Celestial
Celestial Tools
This is Stan Klein's excellent resource and training tool in cel nav and ocean navigation. It is PC only. It is an older interface, but functions well and includes several really unique training tools such as showing every intermediate step answer for any sight reduction using Pub 249, 229, the NAO tables, 208, 211, 214 and more. We have hosted this for him at his request for many years. Stan passed away some years ago. He was a great navigation teacher and a key player in the Power Squadron's program.
 
ICE
The Interactive Computer Ephemeris (ICE) is the Naval Observatory's original computerized nautical almanac. It is a bit clunky to use, and takes a while to learn how to use (there are numerous computations to choose from) but does give good data — at least in all the cases we have tested — even though they no longer support it, nor guarantee the results. This is the same program sold commercially by some outlets, offered free of charge here as a bonus to Starpath customers. Once you log in with your webcard, you will also obtain valuable instructions for using this rather obtuse resource.
 
Star map Cartes du Ceil
Certainly one of the best available. Many options for astronomers as well as navigators. This is a freeware product. The fine work of Patrick Chevalley in Switzerland.
 
Star map Home Planet
There are several of these, commercial, shareware, and freeware. This freeware product is as good as most of the commercial ones. This freeware product from John Walker in Switzerland is quite a powerful program. No installation, just download, unzip into a folder and run. Has a neat screen saver option as well.
 
Star map Skyglobe
There are many star map programs on the market and in the shareware/freeware realm, some quite elaborate with many options. But for all the standard applications that might be of interest to celestial navigation, we have not found many better than this classic DOS program. It is still our favorite. Learn the easy keystroke commands and you have a most wonderful tool here. However, one should still see the elegant Cartes du Ceil for the top of the line. This one is just a bit easier to use in some situations. (There is a windows version of this program, but it does not work too well, since modern computers are way too fast for it.)
 
Stellarium
One the best if not the best interactive astronomy programs for learning and practicing cel nav. There is a free mac and pc version. We have a video on how to use this for cel nav.
General Navigation
GeoMag
Computes magnetic variation anywhere in the world including annual change and dip angle, along with all other properties of the magnetic field. Based on World Magnetic Model (WMM), which is updated every 5 years. This program is included in the Starpath StarPilot and also in a plugin for OpenCPN.
 
Navigation Computers
This started out as a Starpath "repackaging" of the NGA nav computers that they prepared for the American Practical Navigator, but then we restructured some and started to add our own and others we found online. Pretty comprehensive.
 
Precise distance computer
This technical program computes the true distance between two points on the earth taking into account the actual geoid shape that is selected. Note that typical great circle or rhumbline programs presume that the earth is round — which in fact is an adequate assumption for typical marine navigation problems. This is only for those interested in the nitty-gritty, or for studying the effects of GPS datum variations. Also computes new lat/lon after moving given distance and direction from another point, ie high precision DR computation.
GPS
All about NMEA data
Explains sentence names and structure.
 
Live locations of GPS satellites
Shows where all are located, plus option to look at WAAS only, or other satellites as well, such as weather sats. Neat, effective link.
 
NMEA simulator
GPS simulator for use with Windows echart programs. The demo version will meet most needs if you send the signals not too frequently. Also simulates wind and current and AIS targets. Note there is a more powerful simulator inside of qtVlm (see below) but it only works in that program.
Miscellaneous
Big red cursor
Very nice large red cursor for use with echart programs or other applications. Install and uninstall instructions provided.
 
High precision DR computations
This online computer has two functions: 1 compute accurate great circle distances, and 2 compute accurate DR position given a known position and a course and distance sailed from it. It will let you enter the shape of the earth for highest precision. Use WGS84 for best results. See our article on this topic in the Articles section.
 
qtVlm
Extremely powerful free navigation and weather program for Mac or PC. We use this in our courses on Electronic Chart Navigation and Marine Weather.
Tides and Currents
For Windows
There are several ports of the original Dave Flater unix xtides program, this is one Windows version, with links to others. (xtides is the basis of most subsequent tide and current programs. See full list of ports at xtides32 site... this program is certainly not as nice as some commercial ones such as Nobeltec's Tides and Currents for Windows, but the price is certainly right for those on a strict budget. This data is also available online -- see Inet Connections.)
Weather
Marine Barometer
We have two state of the art mobile apps for barometers. One is free (Marine Barometer) and one is $14.99 (Marine Barograph) that adds a tremendous amount of features to the app, equivalent to what you find in an $800 electronic barograph. See Starpath Barometer apps.
 
Starpath TrueWind
True Wind from Apparent Wind or vice versa. A small but very effective program that computes true wind speed and direction from apparent wind speed and direction and boat speed. Offers numeric input or a unique graphic interface that shows exactly how the vectors look in the computation.

Also included is a tutorial on the role of true wind computations in navigation and weather analysis, along with step-by-step instructions on how to solve the problem graphically. It is a pdf linked from the help menu.

 
Starpath WindCalc
The Starpath WindCalc app is a free convenient way to convert apparent wind to true or true to apparent. There are iOS, Android, Mac, and PC versions. This app simply removes that concern from the nav station. See Starpath WindCalc