Celestial Navigation (instruction video)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as an unusually clear teaching film on how celestial navigation works, and as an example of how good old military training material is.
What it is
A roughly 45-minute vintage US military instructional film that gives a comprehensive overview of celestial navigation, covering sextant use and the theory behind lines of position.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2021 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec matheusmoreira · 2025-09 · on “The World War Two bomber that cost more than the atomic bomb”
I love these military training movies, they're so good at teaching complex concepts. This one about celestial navigation is really good as well: [this video]
Recommends throw0101a · 2021-02 · on “GNSS Jamming and Spoofing – Galileo's Authentication Algorithm Part 3 (2020)”
> Military solutions will fall back to inertial, celestial or optical guidance, and people using GPS for navigation will at worst show up where they need to be somewhat later than planned. The US Navy re-started celestial navigation a few years ago: * [LINK] This (1960s?) US government produced (45m) video video gives a pretty good overview: * [this video] For those wanting to invest (substantially) more time, the two videos by "Tippecanoe Boats" are slightly rambling at times, but he does lay things out pretty well by the end of it (second is largely examples): * [LINK] * [LINK]
Recommends matheusmoreira · 2022-03 · on “Technical Time Travel: On Vintage Programming Books”
Yeah, what is it about these old military materials that makes them so great? They're easy to follow and understand. Here's an old video about celestial navigation: [this video] It feels like we've forgotten how to make videos like these.
Cites throw0101b · 2024-06 · on “Weighing Up Galileo's Evidence”
> I'd think that the Earth rotating would be obvious much, much sooner […] How exactly could you tell the difference between one moving reference and another? Einstein eventually showed us that it is not possible. As this US Navy video shows, having the Earth stand still and having the 'celestial sphere' move actually makes celestial navigation using a sextant possible / mathematically easy: * [this video] / [LINK] The Ancients / pre-Moderns concluded that the stars were on one celestial sphere and the wanderers ( planetes in Greek) were on others.
Cites throw0101a · 2025-01 · on “Ships must practice celestial navigation”
Training for this was discontinued, but brought back in 2016: * [LINK] Now if only the US (and others) would get their act together and build out a backup system to GNSS. China, for example, has built out an eLoran system: * [LINK] An old USAF video explaining how the theory works (it assumes a geocentric worldview: the Earth is the centre of the universe (but it's not flat :)): * [this video]
Cites throw0101a · 2025-01 · on “Ships must practice celestial navigation”
> Curious how navigation at night was not possible without expensive equipment, sounds like they were relying only on starts in the morning and evening? As a sibling comment notes, it is possible. There are tables for lunar distance: * [LINK] * [LINK] * [LINK] The planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn can be used, as well as several dozen planets (lookup tables in an almanac) * [LINK] * [LINK] Two US military videos explaining the theory (ground points/GP, circle of position, etc ): * USAF: [this video] * Army: [LINK] The USAF has a video because that's how planes used to do navigation outside of radio range—sextants on the ceiling of the cockpit: * [LINK] * [LINK]