Solar Tracking

People have used celestial bodies as navigational tools for hundreds of years. As people began exploring by ship, they needed a way to know where they were heading. Once a sailor would lose sight of land, the difference between heading north, east, west, or south could only be known by the position of the sun and stars. People knew that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. If you were heading in the direction of a setting sun, you would be heading west. But that still didn't tell explorers much.

It wasn't until the invention of the sextant, in 1730, that the sun could be used to measure one's latitude position on the earth. As more explorers crossed the oceans, charts were being written and explorers could figure out more precisely where they were. There were some earlier devices used to measure position from the sun, but none of them were as accurate and compact as the sextant.

The sextant measures the angle between the horizon and the sun. With this information, some calculations, and a navigational almanac, sailors could get a good idea on where they were.

History of Celestial Navigation

The Sextant

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