StarPilot

But I’m not sure if the developer still cares about this. 2 years now without an update and the graphics are from iOS 6 so horribly outdated and of course no iPhone X support yet.

Overall great tool. Would be great if you could sync the Sight Archive to the cloud so that sights entered on iPhone could be accessed from iPad or vice versa.

As a professional US navy navigator I've used this app daily for at least 7 years. First on a TI89 calculator, then on iPhones starting with a 4s when that was new. Now on a 7 Plus. Makes my work easier and would be lost without it. The U/I may not be as polished as an app from Apple but it certainly does the job. Have never had a single crash or malfunction. Paid once for the app years ago and have benefited from regular updates. It is the only Nav app I recommend to other officers and cadets.

It constantly closes itself, wiping out all readings. When I reopen the app, everything is back to zero. All entered shots gone. My DR position gone. My course gone. My speed gone. I go through the whole process again, make it plot, and BOOM, back to my home screen, and it’s all gone again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. For some ridiculous reason, I kept at it and it finally plotted my position on the fifth attempt, for only for a minute, then BOOM, all gone. Tried again, and it wouldn’t plot. Absolutely worthless! I’ll be pursuing a refund.

The problem here is that when you run into a software glitch, GMN will not only blow you off, but will absolutely refuse to even admit the most obvious and easily fixable problems. It very much seems that the software writer is tired of maintaining the product and is unwilling to address any new or old problems. As you can see, the one star bar is rapidly catching up with the five star bar and will very soon pass it by. If you can tolerate the small problems, the program is still fun. However don't even dream of staking your safety on this tool. Bring your sight reduction tables with you. Ron DiGiovanni Easton, PA

After making the decision to purchase this rather expensive application I appreciate many of its abilities, True Wind, Sunrise/Sunset, Body ID, etc. but it doesn't have an apparently easy Azimuth/Amplitude function which is one of my most frequent practices in celestial navigation. If this is added in a later version I will amend this comment. One bug for iPhone 5 are the buttons at the bottom don't work. Tried removing the app from recent app memory and then rebooting. Did not help. Hopefully next update corrects the issue.

This is the app that I've recommend for all mariners! No more manual methods!! Just easy way... Thanks.!!

I'm using Starpilot for taking gyro errors and position fixing frequently. It's giving a very precise figures and very reliable and can be used for navigation on big vessels. I'm recommending this app for all navigators, at the moment it's the best one. But it will be great to have a features such as : printing of determined position by dead reckoning and observed position. At least possibility to save it and then to print manually from album or whatever. Also will be nice to have an option to take a position and time fix automatically by pushbutton on taking a sight! A little improvement in a drawing of chart mercator's scale and observed position will be nice(sometimes very hard to read something there and not a perfect tool for zooming). Will be nice to include possibility of reviewing of daily Almanac and associated pages for manual calculations(useful for practical navigators for improving skills). Thanks, and waiting for updates! If will be any improvements I'll recomend and spread between many of my iPhone-users and navigators this great application! Good luck!

The Starpilot iphone/ipod program is a well made celestial navigation application for the professional mariner. I have made a number of sea passages using the app for iphone and have found it very useful, well designed, and fun to use. No matter what your level of involvement is with celestial navigation (C-Nav), from just doing a few azimuths or amplitudes to check your vessel's compass to doing full days worth of celestial navigation, this program has it all covered. For me it puts the fun back into C-nav by removing almost all of the tedious number crunching and calculation errors (human) that can go along with using the publications and I have found the results to be highly accurate. I do not recommend that someone preparing for professional testing/licensing use this program as the sole means of learning Celestial Navigation. For that there is no substitute for learning to use the publications in this situation. Though, it could be used as a way to check your work. One advantage I can see this App would have onboard a small vessel is the precious space saved by the reduction of publications needed to do C-Nav. Another advantage that using this app on an iphone or ipod touch has is that the device is backlit so you can do your calculation on a dimly lit bridge or chartroom without having to hold a flashlight to see your work, ruining your night vision. The program is well designed and layed out. But, Don’t be fooled though, it will take some time to learn your way around and get your bearings. But, I would think this would be expected based on the complexity of c-nav and the number is different uses the program has. After playing around with it a bit and taking a few sights most people should have no problem with it. Also the manual is built into the program under the “help” option. The creator of this app seems to be very passionate about his product. I wrote to him to make a suggestion about the Starpilot program and within minutes of hitting the send button I had a reply from him. I strongly recommend this app.

The Star Pilot package is absolutely fantastic. I have had the good fortune to complete two voyages across the South Atlantic, the first in the yacht Pelagic Australis and the second via Antarctica in the three masted barque Europa, both were hugely enjoyable voyages. Throughout both voyages I took sun, moon and star sights whenever possible, instead of dreading getting out all the tables I had a position within minutes of taking the final sight thanks entirely to the Star Pilot software installed on a Ti 89. This has huge advantages over a laptop as the skipper does mind if you leave it around the chart table and it is much easier to keep safe and dry. The satisfaction of consistently getting positions within 10 miles of the GPS is very satisfying but on a two month voyage there is also a great deal of pleasure to be gained in planning the star sights each day and entering the results in the log, it is a great way to learn more about the our universe. There are other navigational calcs as well and even though I don't need the rhum line course from Cowes to Lymington I still take the Star Pilot on my coastal cruises. Excellent piece of kit. Many thanks, Ken Barker