There's no way around it: Celestial navigation using a sextant is a complex and involved process that involves a fair amount of calculating, correcting, referring to tables, knowledge of the ...

The angle between the two objects is then read off the scale. What makes a sextant so useful in navigation is its accuracy. It can measure an angle with precision to the nearest ten seconds.

Discover some of the incredible tools, from astrolabes to sextants, that ancient sailors ... to architecture to farming and, ...