The classic navigation sextant has served the skipper for ages and has been tailored and pleasing design is on the way of a radical renovation.
The German Cassens & Plath GmbH, has been producing sextants and magnetic compasses for more than a century, and MARINE BRIDGE AND NAVIGATION SYSTEMS LTD., has been working on the Russian market of marine electronics for almost 30 years, join their forces to create a modern product.
Electronic sensors are attached to the Cassens & Plath sextant. They fix and transmit to the computing unit the date of measured angles of the celestial heights. A compact electronic computing unit with software specially developed at MNS LTD. keeps World Time, stores information on 50-60 navigation celestials (with the possibility of updating from the Sea Astronomical Yearbook) and calculates position lines.
Astronomical position finding using the sextant is greatly simplified. The navigator pre-selects the navigation celestials according to the Tables or the stellar globe. Then in menu of the electronic unit display he selects these celestials and makes sequential measurements one after another. A simple press of button allows you to fix the time, measure angles of the celestial heights and calculate the position line by the stored data. After fixing of two or three lines of position, the electronic unit calculates the charted position in geographical coordinates immediately.
It is possible that the next step in the development of the electronic component of this sextant will be the use as an electronic computing unit ordinary Smartphone with special App . This is in the future, but for now the first electronic sextant is on the way.
