[January update 2025] This great app, not updated for several years, No longer working. It's a shame because I had made the French version. A similar alternative could be Celestial Navigation whose latest version 1.4 Mid-2020 date. I haven't had the opportunity to test it yet.
The company Navimatics, located near Seattle, state of Washington, has been offering since October 2010 a complete application for celestial navigation. for iPhone, iPad , and also mobile under Android . It has just been updated to version 1.5 with a new iOS-compliant interface 8/9.
Celestial performs celestial sight reductions, calculates astronomical fixes, presents it graphically, manages sights on multiple trips and assist in sight planning. It includes a complete Almanac of the Sun, Moon, of planets and stars. All this for 20 euros, half the price of the annual Nautical Ephemeris, A real pleasure !
Celestial includes :
- The support of quick sight reduction
Once prompted all sights values (Date and time, Observed height, Lat / Long estimated, Corrections, aso.) instantly calculate an intercept or confirm a manual sight reduction.
- A comprehensive trip manager.
Allows to manage sights taken during a trip. We can store a list of all sights made on several trips, to consult, to arrange or to delete.
- Sights management
Multiple sights can be grouped and averaged together to calculate a fix. Lines Of Position and fixes will be plotted on a virtual plotting sheet.
- Support running fixes.
Celestial takes into account the estimated position of each sight to run the Lines Of Position.
- A star finder and times of rising/set of celestial bodies are included. You can plan your sights in advance to be on deck just in time.
- Almanac of the Sun, Moon, of the planets, the 57 Useful stars for navigation, Aries and North Star, until year 2099.
- Contextual touch help for each screen to know the use of each function (iPhone) or contextual help available on each page (iPad ).
All sight reduction algorithms are referred from the procedures of the U.S. Nautical Almanac (USNO). The positions of celestial bodies are predicted by the software from the U.S. Naval Observatory.
The version 1.5 now has a Day/Night display setting.
Note that this application is mixed, therefore, like iNavX, only one app to buy if you own an iPhone and an iPad. The French version is translated by me.
Yachtmen my friends, handle your sextant !
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Relative article :
About alignments and sextant
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Merci ! Indeed, after reading the article "iPad, GPS and 3G cellular network subscription" I realize that I am not alone !!
Thank you for this info !
I'm planning to buy an iPad Mini 2 3G coming soon, Could you confirm that this model is compatible for autonomous offshore navigation ? With Navionix for example. This model is not present in your article that compares iPads.
Impossible de trouver l’info auprès des « Pros » qui me conseillent à l’Apple Store, entre ceux qui me disent que la navigation GPS avec un iPad n’est pas possible, ceux qui me disent que la puce GPS n’est pas incluse dans l’ipad… bref ils me perdent avec leurs conneries ! 🙂
Thank you for your advice !
In my February article Which iPad for navigation ? I have mentioned the iPad Mini several times ! All iPad Mini Wi-Fi + Cellular (or 3G for the first) are equipped with a GPS and therefore perfectly autonomous for navigation.
Also reread this oldest post iPad , GPS and 3G cellular network subscription unfortunately still relevant !