Nautical Almanac (Annual) Government Edition

Published by United States Nautical Almanac Office
~350 pages
paperback

This book lists the "locations" of the sun, moon, stars, and planets for every day, hour, minute, and second of the year. Location, as used here, means the latitude (called declination) and longitude (called Greenwich Hour Angle) of the point on earth that is directly below these objects in the sky — this point is called the Geographic Position of the object. The almanac also includes several other tables needed for the practice of celestial navigation.

The Almanac is needed for the actual practice celestial navigation, but you do not need this to work the home study course on celestial navigation. In the home study course table sections are provided.

The Almanac is published once a year and it is most convenient to use an up to date copy. However, you can use an old copy for the sun and stars, with some corrections which are all explained in the book. For moon and planets, you must have a current edition.

The main reference for the content of the Nautical Almanac is the US Naval Observatory. The USNO includes a web site that will compute the almanac data on line for any specific object, time, and date within the current year. The Nautical Almanac is actually a joint publication of USNO and the British counterpart called Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office. We try to keep all of these frequently-changing reference links up to date in the Resources sections.

The almanac is an annual publication. The volume for the following year is usually available sometime between September and October. Once available, we stock both the present year and the next. There is an option above to mark your choice.

Note this is the official government edition, not a commercial copy with ads. The commercial copies have blue covers