I just took one of Franks classes and it was awesome!!
Frank taught an incredible class on celestial navigation that brought me from novice to some solid understanding of sextants, their history and most importantly their use as a aid to seeing the sea...and knowing where you are on this planet!
Hands on, wealth of knowledge, great resources ... he really covered a lot of ground! There was a lot of math but unlike in my youth, I was on the edge of my seat to soak up knowledge!! Frank made it relatable and real. The sextant which is such an iconic tool of the sea, was demystified. By the end of class i felt comfortable with it. I had mastered how it worked, how to read it and how to adjust it to insure its accuracy.
I came away with all of the cheat sheets and understandings of equations and concepts that breathe the life into what you capture through your sextant sightings.
I would highly recommend Frank and believe Mystic Seaport with its planetarium, an ideal setting for my class with him discovering this timeless tool of the sea.
Frank did a great job keeping the class interesting with visual aids, both on screen and out on the Seaport grounds.
All in all i would highly recommend this class to any and all folks interested in learning about navigation and sextants. Informative and digestible, but most of all useful to the point where i am comfortable with the instrument and have the formulas needed to continuing to set my sights on the horizon!!
I look forward to more classes to learn more from Frank and strengthen my understandings of celestial navigation!
Thank you!!!
John
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:
John Workman wrote: 20👍
Philip M. Sadler wrote: 85👍
What a joyful and stimulating experience to enroll in Frank Reed's class, Celestial Navigation: 19th Century Methods. Frank is a skillful and engaging teacher, able to draw students into this fascinating subject, whether they be novice or experienced. His depth of knowledge is tremendous. Participants get a real taste of what it was like to be aboard a sailing ship of the day. I learned much to enliven my own teaching and decode 19th century ship's logs. It is a rare experience, indeed, to have so much thoughtfulness, enthusiasm, and fun packed into two days. This is the way to learn!
Philip M. Sadler, Ed.D.
F.W. Wright Senior Lecturer in Celestial Navigation
Harvard University Astronomy Department
Cambridge, MA
Philip M. Sadler, Ed.D.
F.W. Wright Senior Lecturer in Celestial Navigation
Harvard University Astronomy Department
Cambridge, MA
Doug MacPherson wrote: 23👍
I recently took online versions of Frank Reed's "Celestial Navigation in the Age of Sail", and "Lunars - Finding Longitude by Lunar Distances". I couldn't have been more happy with them. Having originally learned post WWII celestial methods as an officer in the United States Navy, and taken it up as a hobby, I was quite familiar with that era's procedures. However, I was intrigued by how they managed prior to then. Frank's two classes filled that void. His vast knowledge of the subject, both the technical aspects of the work as well as the historical significance were perfectly balanced. These are classes that can be thoroughly enjoyed by both the novice as well as the well versed practitioner. Recipe's for doing the work, the science behind those recipes, and actual voyages by the sailors that practiced the art were all presented with wonderful clarity. If "time sights", "cleared lunar distances" or "apparent time" have ever roused an interest, you owe it to yourself to take one of Frank's classes.
Doug MacPherson
Lieutenant, USN sep.
Doug MacPherson
Lieutenant, USN sep.
