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Astronomy Cast Episode 211 from Monday, December 13, 2010. Celestial Navigation.

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of University Day, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gaye, a professor at Southern Illinois University at Pamsville.

Hi Pamela, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, and a month from that December 13th, fictional date.

Yeah.

I'm going to be at the WAS meeting in Seattle, Washington, and we will be doing, or I and random, other people will be doing an event called AstroZone, so you can Google AstroZone and come out and take a look at us and see what we have to show you if you're interested.

Now what's funny about this show is that both you and I will be taking cruises, separate cruises that you're going with your husband.

Yeah. I'm going with my family.

Half a hemisphere apart.

Half a hemisphere apart?

Yeah, you'll be in Europe, and I'll be in Miami.

But, you know, navigation at sea, I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about celestial navigation.

So...

All I have to say is I'm really glad we have GPS.

I do kidding.

I've picked up a sailboat and I've been kind of going through all the learning in this whole huge sections about how to do celestial navigation.

I'm like, why bother?

Just got a GPS, you know?

I've got three GPSs.

...