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From the G&N Dictionary used extensively for training in the Lunar Module simulator.

Using a sextant, like ship mariners of yore, the astronauts would align overlaid images of the Earth’s horizon line and two known stars (the stars remain in fixed positions once the observer is free of Earth’s rotation). They would punch the star number into the DSKY once they had a sighting, and the computer could calculate their exact position in space.

They had 37 stars stored in the magnetic rope memory of the guidance computer. Some of them are faint and obscure because they needed coverage across the sky, not just the brightest stars wherever they may be.

There are three stars here that you should not find on other star charts. Gus Grissom was involved with the early planning and production of the Apollo star charts. When they were deciding on which stars to number and name, he made up names for three of the fainter stars in tribute to his fellow Apollo 1 crewmembers. Star number 3 was called “Navi” which is his own middle name Ivan spelled backwards. Star number 17 was named “Regor” which is Roger (Chaffee) spelled backwards. Star number 20 was “Dnoces” which is Second (Ed White II) spelled backwards. After the tragic deaths of this crew in a training accident, NASA decided to leave these names on the future charts as a tribute.

10 responses to “Apollo 14 Star Charts”

  1. A simpler pictorial, with similar axes: 24 hours along the horizontal and degrees along the vertical.
    IMG_4470

    another page with Southern Stars:
    IMG_4471

    Northern Stars:
    IMG_4471_2

    And offset vectors for the bright, but moving planets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), pre-calculated for this particular mission based on ground elapsed time:
    IMG_4483

    Contingency alignment instructions, with Noun-Verb instructions for the DSKY to transfer the IMU (Inertial Measurement Units – the gimbaled gyros) settings between the spacecraft, and a diagram reminder on horizon seeking with crescent illumination:
    IMG_4488
    Note the last line on the COAS as backup. It is mounted in the window at a known orientation and can also be used to sight a star, as in Apollo 13.

    Here are other Apollo 14 artifacts, such as the CM Docking ring.

  2. Touching story about the crew and legacy names of their stars.
    Have done some celestial navigation & understand how to use a sextant from a boat or a plane which are traveling at relatively slow speeds. But to use fixes from space while traveling at tens of thousands of MPH??? I guess they had the computer programed to handle feeding it three or more "fixes" over some amount of time and it could compute lines of position (LOPs) for each fix factoring/correcting for their forward speed and heading, thus yielding a 3 or 4 LOP cross at some time in the past – which would have been a good reference. But maybe I’m missing something? Where in the journey were they taking fixes (orbiting the moon, orbiting earth, or just in transit between earth and moon?) What "horizon"? Why a 24 hr chart width (was their trajectory locked to earth 24 hr rotation until they approached the moon’s orbit)?

  3. Wow…I often punch in "Navi" and Dnoces while aligning my telescope..
    (3-5 stars and its oriented…but of course its a lot more stable..!)

    I just thought these were a few more oddball Greek (etc) names…

  4. Interesting about stars…and names…would be special to their families…each human is a star in a way, except the ones who became a black hole:D

  5. We are all made of stars…

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenbove] – The Earth’s horizon or the Moon’s. The Earth’s atmosphere made it a bit fuzzy, and the crater-scape of the moon made it rough. There were several adjustments and calibrations made over the whole trip and back (four course corrections on the way out and three on the way back, and numerous guidance platform adjustments). The gyro platform would drift over time. I was thinking that 24 hrs was a reference for a 360° sky, but maybe that just helps them relate to what they saw back on Earth.

  6. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson]
    Buying maps…navigation computers,gyro’s…
    Hmm..
    Are you planning a trip of some sort yourself…?

  7. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeany7]
    Women are better at this
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-14721059

  8. And her name is Hannah no less. She is made for this… with a name that reads the same way backwards!

    But Dave, couldn’t we say this abut almost everything? =)

  9. Yes…….esp if we know what is good for us…(!)

  10. wow! so cool and very inspirational… i felt for 10 min to urge of owning a huge eye in the sky like this… but it is so bulky.. back to my cell phone… will wait the time when my cell phone will become a telescope and a microscope with x-ray vision potential:D

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