I am an instructor in the Marine Department of Georgian College in 
Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. Owen Sound is a marine port on Lake Huron
(one of North America's 5 great lakes). Over the past several years
I have developed this program which was written in Visual Basic and
which can be used by the yachtsman or marine student alike. 
To use the program blue background text boxes must be filled
with the appropriate numerical data (All times in GMT), Yellow check boxes,
option buttons or yellow text bars must be clicked as appropriate.
Once all the input data has been supplied the gray command buttons
are clicked to provide the required solution. The red coloured labels
are for information only. The long term celestial almanac contains
all the stars and planets listed in the Nautical Almanac and the
data will be of use until Dec 1998. The data should be accurate to
within 0.2 minutes for all bodies except the moon which has an accuracy
better than 0.7 minutes.
The main features of this program are as follows.

1. Mercator sailing 1. To determine the course, distance, and ETA.
2. Mercator sailing 2. To determine a dead reckoning position using the
computer's clock, the course and speed.
3. To determine a great circle course and distance and intermediate
longitudes so the course can be plotted. Composite sailing is also allowed.
4. Current vectors are solved.
5. To determine a compass fix using two simutaneous compass sights.
6. To determine a compass fix using 2 compass bearing on a single
object (running fix). 
7. To determine the course made good using 3 sights on one object.
8. To calculate distances off using vertical sextant angles.
9. To calculate distances off using relative horizontal sextant angles.
10. A position fix using 2 to 5 simlutaneous celestial sights or a running
fix using celestail sights can be computed. All altitude corrections are
completed. Unreasonable sights can be omitted.
11. To calculate the Greenwich Hour angle and Declination and other relavent
data for a celestial body for any time from 1950 to the end of 1998.
12. To calculate the true altitudes and azimuths of the celestial bodies
and their rates of change.
13. To calculate the times of rise, set, meridian passage, and prime
vertical passage for celestial bodies. Times  of twilight can be found.
14.  A diagram depicting the positions of the celestail bodies can be
constructed to help identify the object. Click on the body to get its
name, altitude, and azimuth. Holding this above one's head and orienting
the North end of the map to the north should make identication easy.
For use with a black and white printer a black and white option is
included. Copy the map to the window's clipboard and print using any
windows program that can print the clipboard's contents.
15. The hourly GHA's and DEC's of the celestial bodies can also be
printed in advance of a voyage.
16. Several types of unit conversions can be performed. (British & Metric).
17. The ship's magnetic deviation coeffients can be entered by swinging
the ship. These can later be loaded elsewhere in the program.
18. Compass and true courses can be calculated.
19. Using tide tables the times and heights of tides can be computed.
20. Relative humidity and dew point temperature can be computed.
21. A small notepad (Log) is included to record text information about
a ship's voyage. It features wordwrap, cut, and paste. Don't forget to
save it under a unique name using the .log extension.
22. A dual digital time clock (local time and GMT) is included.
Set the time zone and amount that your computer's clock is in error.
This can be done using radio time signals. The time can be read from
this clock in other parts of the program.    
  
To install this program run the setup program. If using Windows 95 use
the control panel to install so the program can be easily uninstalled
if desired.I urge you to freely copy and distribute this program
to whoever you wish.
The author will not assume any liability for any errors or incidents
arising from use of this software. The program is distributed as is.
The user's comments are welcomed. Send any comments to
dbell@gc1.georcoll.on.ca. A deluxe verson of this software is available
from the author that will provide accurate celestial data until the year
2050. The cost is approximately $37.00 US.
I hope you find this program useful.
					
						 Happy Sailing!
						 Doug Bell