Celestial Navigator vs EZ Nautical Almanac
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Celestial Navigator
This app assists with celestial navigation training by providing a perpetual almanac, star finder chart with animation, and tools for calculating lines of position and meridian passages. It can utilize device sensors for real-time chart positioning, though a marine sextant is still required for actual navigation.
- Perpetual almanac
- Animated star finder chart
- Line of position calculation
- Meridian passage calculation
- Real-time sensor integration
- Celestial object data
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Celestial Navigation Calculator with - perpetual Almanac - star finder chart with animation. Use phone sensor for altitude. - calculation of lines of position ( intercept/delta ) - celestial object data - meridian passage calculation - running fix support - astronomical position calculations with two or more altitude observations - Hipparchus 150 star catalog - World chart with lines and position Program can be set to use device's sensors (gyro, compass) to position the star finder chart in real time. Capture celestial object approximate altitude. Correct Altitude with a Marine Sextant reading (not included). You still need a marine sextant to do celestial navigation, but the phone sensors may be used for training. Software for iPhone and iPad, with the same features. e-book with manual and celestial navigation tutorial.
EZ Nautical Almanac
Access 100 years of nautical almanac data digitally, from 1960 to 2059. This app offers enhanced navigation features like instant page access, highlighting, and zoom, supporting celestial navigation activities offline.
- 100 years of almanac data (1960-2059)
- Instant page access
- Data highlighting
- Zoom and pan functionality
- Offline astronomical calculations
- Concise sight reduction tables
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You need a Nautical Almanac to do celestial navigation. In today’s digital age, why buy a new book every year when you can buy a digital Nautical Almanac that provides 100 years of Nautical Almanacs (1960 - 2059) for less than half the price of a single year of the book. All data is formatted and organized exactly as you are used to seeing it in the official Nautical Almanacs published by USNO and HMNAO. Here are some things you can do with ezNA that you can’t do with your book: - Generate and use 100 years of Nautical Almanac pages for the years 1960 through 2059. - Easily go directly to the page you want without thumbing through pages. - Highlight the data you are looking for by touching the row and column headings on the page. - Zoom and pan to clearly read the tables. - Using Zoom, pan, and highlight makes the almanac easy to use on a phone as well as a tablet. - Functions are provided to do the necessary table lookups to perform basic Cel Nav activities. - The function pages show all almanac values used in the function with an almanac icon. - Click or touch the icon to go to the correct page with that value highlighted. The concise sight reduction tables are included and the sight reduction function demonstrates how to use them. If you have never used them then you are in for a big surprise. They are amazing! In the format I am generating them, they are a total of 16 pages (32 pages in the official Nautical Almanac). With this few pages and a few extra steps to use them you can still generate sight reductions that are typically within about 1 NM of those produced by Pub 229. Pub 229 has about 400 pages per volume and there is a total of 6 Volumes! ezNA 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 app, ezNA is fully functional with no dependency on a data connection. Please note that this digital Nautical Almanac is already included in ezAlmanacOne, which is our full celestial navigation solution. There is no need to purchase ezNA if you already have ezAlmanacOne. ezNA is NOT a full celestial navigation solution. It is a digital Nautical Almanac with functions to support using the Nautical Almanac tables. You can only do a single full sight reduction at a time. Using ezNA and manually recording and plotting your reductions you can still generate a fix manually!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: EZ Nautical Almanac at 100% against Celestial Navigator's 43%. EZ Nautical Almanac also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.2) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 9 months). Celestial Navigator's advantage is price (Free vs $9.99) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 13.0). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Celestial Navigator is free to download; EZ Nautical Almanac costs $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
EZ Nautical Almanac holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 5 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 43% of Celestial Navigator's written reviews are positive against 100% of EZ Nautical Almanac's.
Celestial Navigator ships an update every 9 months, EZ Nautical Almanac every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Celestial Navigator | EZ Nautical Almanac |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 3.2 (5 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 42.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 32 MB | 114 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Omar reis | EZ Celestial LLC |
Customer experience
Celestial Navigator
EZ Nautical Almanac
In-app purchases
Celestial Navigator
No in-app purchases
EZ Nautical Almanac
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Celestial Navigator free?
Is EZ Nautical Almanac free?
Which has better reviews, Celestial Navigator or EZ Nautical Almanac?
Do Celestial Navigator or EZ Nautical Almanac have ads?
Which is updated more often, Celestial Navigator or EZ Nautical Almanac?
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