THE ACCURACY OF CELESTIAL FIXES AS COMPARED TO NAVSAT POSITIONS BY LEAST SQUARES ADJUSTMENT

H. F. Van Der Grinten

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	Forty-six celestial lines of position obtained aboard a ship at sea are compared with the position as interpolated between NAVSAT fixes. Least squares adjustment of the combined celestial lines of position yielded a fix with an essentially circular error ellipse. The directional distribution of stars was well balanced. The NAVSAT positions and the combined celestial fix were found to be substantially in agreement. Using the NAVSAT positions as a reference the mean error of well balanced celestial fixes as derived from the data and the method of least squares can be expected to be less than 0.8 nm for a 3-star fix and 0.1 nm for a 46-star fix. These results permit the construction of probability contours around well balanced celestial fixes consisting of various numbers of observations.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 22, Number 2
Pages:	128 - 134
Cite this article:	Grinten, H. F. Van Der, "THE ACCURACY OF CELESTIAL FIXES AS COMPARED TO NAVSAT POSITIONS BY LEAST SQUARES ADJUSTMENT", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 22, No. 2, Summer 1975, pp. 128-134.
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