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
Celestial Navigation in the Age of Sail
Winter / Spring 2026:
Navigate like the crew of the Charles W. Morgan! A fast-paced, two-day introductory workshop in the history and practice of celestial navigation in the Age of Sail. Examining original logbooks and notebooks from the Morgan's voyages we'll apply these same methods to modern navigation. By the end of the weekend, you'll have all the tools you need to sail by the Sun and stars across any ocean. And we'll follow a historic whaling voyage of the Charles W. Morgan across the Pacific, a voyage filled with intrigue: an unknown illness, a captain's resignation, and a mutiny, and port calls on tropical islands and the snowy north of Japan.
In this class, we'll learn how to use and adjust sextants. We'll become experts in the classic method of finding latitude by "Noon Sun". We'll also cover in detail the "equation of time", the "analemma", and the mysterious math of longitude ... mysterious on day one, easy by the end of this two-day workshop! Throughout, we will compare what we're doing with actual logbook entries and calculations in the collections of Mystic Seaport Museum, bringing historical documents to life.
This is real navigation, not just a class "about" navigation. Fast and intense, students who complete this workshop will have the basic celestial navigation skills to cross any ocean using the Sun, a sextant, and a few other simple tools, drawn directly from New England maritime history.
All workshops: $ 149 per person, per workshopCreated and taught by Frank Reed, celestial navigation and astronomy consultant on the team that found Shackleton's "Endurance" in 2022. Also a recent guest expert in celestial navigation on Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk on The National Geographic Channel.
- Nine hours of class sessions.
- Before this workshop: no pre-requisites; designed for beginners.
- Some math you'll need: Basic addition and subtraction; good familiarity with the concepts of latitude and longitude; introductory algebra concepts, especially positive and negative numbers.
- Recommended for ages 18 and up, students as young as age 13 welcome.
If you're registered for an online workshop, you're invited to attend hour-long sextant practical sessions in Rhode Island and Connecticut scheduled as weather and other factors permit. These live, in-person sessions are included in your registration for online classes.
Comments:
John Workman wrote: 20👍
Samuel S Lyness wrote: 8👍
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
Sam Lyness
Dr. Russell D. Sampson wrote: 31👍
I took Frank's 19th Century Celestial Navigation class in April 2013 and really enjoyed it. Not only was the class interesting but my fellow classmates were too; a retired skipper of a ballistic missile sub, the son of the fellow who invented GPS, a teacher, a captain of a Panamax container ship and a fellow who crossed the Atlantic solo - twice!
The class was also a great resource for my teaching and my own research interests such as the visibility of celestial objects in the daytime (Jupiter and Venus) and the effects of astronomical refraction near the horizon. I hope to take more workshops with Frank.
Dr. Russell D. Sampson
Wickware Planetarium
Eastern Connecticut State University
The class was also a great resource for my teaching and my own research interests such as the visibility of celestial objects in the daytime (Jupiter and Venus) and the effects of astronomical refraction near the horizon. I hope to take more workshops with Frank.
Dr. Russell D. Sampson
Wickware Planetarium
Eastern Connecticut State University
