Marine Sextant Introduction and Principle Pros Marine for Marine

A sextant. A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation.. The estimation of this angle, the altitude, is known as sighting or shooting the object, or taking a sight.. The sextant can measure angles between distant objects, accurate to the closest 0.002°. The main difference is that a sextant uses mirrors to measure the angle between different beams of light. When you angle a sextant's mirrors correctly, you can visually overlay two objects. In celestial navigation, you would overlay a star with the horizon.

The sextant is an instrument used to measure angles. Its arc is one sixth of a circle. Hence it is called a sextant.In actual practice, the arc of the sextant is about 60°. Being an instrument of double reflection, it can measure angles up to about 120° Typically the sextant is used to measure the […]. The sextant is a valuable instrument used to determine the angle between the horizon and a celestial body like the Sun, Moon or Star. It is used in celestial navigation to find out the latitude and longitude. Sextant derives its name from the Latin word' sextus; or 'one-sixth', as the sextant's arc spans 60° or one-sixth of a circle.