Frank, a wonderful course in Lunars. I learned a lot. I admire your teaching skills and your astounding fund of knowledge. I would wish to emulate your style of instruction. Best regards, hope to sign up for your course in Cel. Nav. in Age of Sailing.
Sam Lyness
Get my "GPS Anti Spoof" app for iOS and Android...
Invaluable for real navigation and great for sextant education and practice, too...
"A great opportunity to learn celestial navigation in an immersive environment under the guidance of a fantastic teacher, cartographer, and master navigator. Frank Reed's style integrates history, mechanics, and observation together to produce ... the best two-day course available, anywhere."
—Philip Sadler, Lecturer in Astronomy, Director Science Education, Harvard University.
Celestial Navigation Classes — Winter/Sping 2026:
Celestial Season Pass: Six high-quality celestial navigation workshops twice in six months, as scheduled below, at a substantial discount. Celestial season passes include all twelve workshop sessions in the six months following registration.
Online Workshops
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Modern Celestial Navigation
Sail with the Sun... Modern, practical celestial navigation. Learn to use, calibrate, and adjust sextants. 'Shoot the Sun' to determine latitude and longitude. Correct sights for 'dip', refraction, and other factors. Determine the 'GHA' and Declination of the Sun in modern tables. Easy and designed for beginners — if you can add and subtract, you can navigate by the Sun. more... -
Advanced Celestial
Sail by the stars... Practical celestial navigation using twilight stars to determine latitude and longitude. Learn modern methods to get a position fix as well as the traditional "intercept method" using H.O.249. We'll also learn how to reliably identify over a dozen of the principal navigation stars including Arcturus, Vega, Canopus, and Polaris. Modern Celestial is recommended as a prerequisite. more... -
Expert Celestial
Sail beyond the Stars... A workshop in advanced and exotic methods of celestial navigation. Moon and planet sights in detail. Spherical trigonometry. Advanced refraction. And finding your true fix by clever tricks... more... -
Celestial Navigation in the Age of Sail
Sail through History... Learn the tried and true methods of historical celestial navigation. Directly based on the logbooks of the famous New England whaleship Charles W. Morgan. Real celestial navigation from the historical perspective of the Age of Sail. Learn to use, calibrate, and adjust sextants. "Shoot the Sun" to determine latitude and longitude. Correct sights for "dip", refraction, and other factors. Apply historical pencil and paper calculations, exactly as done in the 19th century. more... -
Lunars and Longitude
Sail by the Moon... Learn to shoot and work the math of "lunars", long considered the ultimate test of a celestial navigator. The Moon in "lunars" served as a great natural clock in the heavens. Applying the greatest math and science from two centuries ago, lunars today remain challenging and intricate and serve as a window into the fascinating early history of navigation. Exploring logbooks from historic voyages, including HMAS Bounty, we'll learn lunars from the navigators themselves. more... -
Advanced Lunars
Sail like a Lunarian...Diving deeper with Lunars, we'll learn more history, more fascinating math details, and we'll also see how lunars survived into the Space Age. more...
Repeat any class as many times as you wish for a modest "seat fee". If you have attended any ReedNavigation.com workshop or class at the standard rate since 1 Jan 2021, either in-person or online, you may repeat that class, when scheduled online, for only $35.
Register to Repeat NOW.
Note: We offer excellent institutional referral arrangements. Send students to our online workshops and get paid for it. If you represent an institution —a school, a museum, a planetarium, a sailing club— and you would like to provde access to any of our celestial navigation workshops, then let's talk. There are always options. Any of our workshops and classes can also run as private tutorials.
Comments:
Samuel S Lyness wrote: 8👍
Mark Coady wrote: 11👍
I have now done every course I think that has been offered so far at Mystic Seaport taught by Frank Reed in the last two years. I found the courses to all be extremely rewarding.
Several things stand out. The course material is presented in a balanced way, with a well thought mixture of detailed calculation, broken up by historical, factual, and hands-on aspects. This type of teaching is well suited to most, as it provides periods of more intense reasoning with relaxation and humor. Anyone can walk away with new-found knowledge. I also feel that the approach of understanding historical context and a simple practical approach is unique. It has gone a great way toward clearing up a lot of my preconceived ideas and confusions resulting from the many contradictory or esoteric approaches found in various volumes or on the internet.
Very simply, I learned a lot and it went a long way toward clearing up a mess. I was fascinated the whole time. The courses and NavList provide the tools to keep learning even after the course is over. I left able to measure what I see with a more calibrated eye for real world application, and a greater appreciation of human history. I can strongly recommend these classes for the curious, the fascinated, the historian, the hardcore navigator, or the armchair one. There is something in them for all.
I also found the NavList community to be helpful and encouraging as my journey continues. I hope I can undertake even more material in additional courses in the future.
"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats" (Kenneth Grahame, from the "Wind in the Willows")
Capt. Mark
Several things stand out. The course material is presented in a balanced way, with a well thought mixture of detailed calculation, broken up by historical, factual, and hands-on aspects. This type of teaching is well suited to most, as it provides periods of more intense reasoning with relaxation and humor. Anyone can walk away with new-found knowledge. I also feel that the approach of understanding historical context and a simple practical approach is unique. It has gone a great way toward clearing up a lot of my preconceived ideas and confusions resulting from the many contradictory or esoteric approaches found in various volumes or on the internet.
Very simply, I learned a lot and it went a long way toward clearing up a mess. I was fascinated the whole time. The courses and NavList provide the tools to keep learning even after the course is over. I left able to measure what I see with a more calibrated eye for real world application, and a greater appreciation of human history. I can strongly recommend these classes for the curious, the fascinated, the historian, the hardcore navigator, or the armchair one. There is something in them for all.
I also found the NavList community to be helpful and encouraging as my journey continues. I hope I can undertake even more material in additional courses in the future.
"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats" (Kenneth Grahame, from the "Wind in the Willows")
Capt. Mark
Greg Rudzinski wrote: 6👍
The online class "Lunars: Finding Longitude by Lunar Distance" was a very interesting introduction to the esoteric history of lunars as practiced at sea in the pre chronometer 18th century tall ship era. Practical instruction was also done demonstrating the physical process of observing a lunar with a sextant followed by a how to lunar sight reduction example using a pocket calculator, formulae, and tables. A very rewarding experience.
Greg Rudzinski
Retired Merchant Mariner
SUNY Maritime class of 80
Greg Rudzinski
Retired Merchant Mariner
SUNY Maritime class of 80
