EZ Lunars

Lunars are easy when you have a sextant, a Nautical Almanac and the pre-computed lunar distance tables! Learn to do lunars as they were done when the pre-computed lunar distance tables were published in the Nautical Almanac over 100 years ago (last published by the USNO in 1906). As in the old days, the Lunar Supplement tables contain the lunar distances of up to 6 navigational bodies each day at 3-hour intervals, along with a proportional logarithm value needed to interpolate the distance to determine Greenwich time at the time of your observation. A proportional logarithm table, moon augmented semidiameter, and second differences table are also part of the supplement. ezLunarsOne includes everything you need to perform lunars with a pencil and paper just like the ancient navigators. Most users, however, will want to start out letting ezLunarsOne do all of the work. ezLunarsOne includes functions to guide you through the process of planning your lunar, making the observations and using the tables to compute Greenwich time. Values used from the Nautical Almanac and Lunar Supplement tables are shown in these functions with a book icon button. When the button is pressed it will bring you to the table in which that number is found and highlight the value. When your lunar is cleared, ezLunarsOne will even output your data to a lunar clearing form just like you would do by hand. When you are ready to do lunars on your own, the lunar supplement tables and blank clearing forms can be sent to a printer or PDF file for use outside the app. Since the full solution also requires data from the Nautical Almanac, the full Almanac from ezAlmanacOne is provided in ezLunarsOne along with the Lunar Supplement tables. ezLunarsOne performs all astronomical calculations using the NOVAS 3.1 software from the US Naval Observatory (USNO) and a JPL ephemeris that covers the years 1960 through 2059. Since all calculations are performed in the software, ezLunarsOne is fully functional with no dependency on a data connection from your device.