For those of us who like to keep our basic celestial navigational skills sharp, this modification to Stellarium might be of use. For those of us who would like ot learn CN it will definately be of help.

Here is how to do it. (copy and paste the commands between the quotes)

-In the terminal:

" cd /usr/share/stellarium/skycultures/ "
Create a new folder
" sudo mkdir navigational_stars "
Copy the contents of the 'western' folder into the new folder 'navigational_stars'.
" sudo cp western/*.* navigational_stars "
" cd navigational_stars "
In the folder 'navigational_stars' do the following:
" sudo gedit info.ini "
Edit the first line of 'info.ini' to be: name = Navigational Stars
Save & Close then
" sudo gedit star_names.fab "
Similarly open the file 'star_names.fab' and delete all of its content, and copy the list below into the file:

677|_("Alpheratz")
2081|_("Ankaa")
3179|_("Shedar")
3419|_("Diphda")
7588|_("Achernar")
9884|_("Hamal")
11767|_("Polaris")
13847|_("Acamar")
14135|_("Menkar")
15863|_("Mirfak")
21421|_("Aldebaran")
24436|_("Rigel")
24608|_("Capella")
25336|_("Bellatrix")
25428|_("Elnath")
26311|_("Alnilam")
27989|_("Betelgeuse")
30438|_("Canopus")
32349|_("Sirius")
33579|_("Adhara")
37279|_("Procyon")
37826|_("Pollux")
41037|_("Avior")
44816|_("Suhail")
45238|_("Miaplacidus")
46390|_("Alphard")
49669|_("Regulus")
54061|_("Dubhe")
57632|_("Denebola")
59803|_("Gienah")
60718|_("Acrux")
61084|_("Gacrux")
62956|_("Alioth")
65474|_("Spica")
67301|_("Alkaid")
68702|_("Hadar")
68933|_("Menkent")
69673|_("Arcturus")
71681|_("Rigil Kent")
72607|_("Kochab")
72622|_("Zubenelgenubi")
76267|_("Alphekka")
80763|_("Antares")
82273|_("Atria")
84012|_("Sabik")
85927|_("Shaula")
86032|_("Rasalhague")
87833|_("Eltanin")
90185|_("Kaus Australis")
91262|_("Vega")
92855|_("Nunki")
97649|_("Altair")
100751|_("Peacock")
102098|_("Deneb")
107315|_("Enif")
109268|_("Al Nair")
113368|_("Fomalhaut")
113963|_("Markab")

You're set. When you open Stellarium under "Sky and Viewing Options" a tab named "Sky Culture" in it you will see the option called "Navigational Stars". Select it and enjoy.

Thank you for this contribution I'll put this little nice modification into the next update.

That's awesome! Thanks for the post.

Thank you for the mod! It is very useful on a boat. I have a question regarding Stellarium:
It is possible to further modify the way Stellarium works, by starting it up every time using the gps position data, as Location?
It would be very useful in a boat sailing the seas. I start Stellarium most every nights during passage, and find it hard to enter the coordinates manually...
Any ideas?

Adrian, it should be automagic already, and you're going to slap your forehead.

There's a script that creates a location called Earth, Navigatrix GPS Location that has your recent coordinates ready.

Open the Location window (F6), and search for Navigatrix make sure the Use as default box is ticked.
"X" in the upper right corner to close the dialogue window and start looking up.

Speaking of slapping foreheads....

We were about a week out of the Galapagos and the winds had died, I mean pancake smooth. Sure there were the swells, but the sea was a lumpy mirror.

We still kept an active watch even though we had not see anyone for days.

Margaret woke me while I was off-watch. There was a light approaching on the horizon. It had her puzzled.

Sure enough, in the clear star-fill night one bright solitary light was shimmering on the water, gaining apparent altitude as it got closer.

We hailed it on the VHF, no response. Most curious. What is it?

We fire up Stellarium only to find we had just used the VHF to call Jupiter....

Oh, no

I spent so much time upon the tossing ocean entering my coordinates not knowing of this feauture.. well now i know, and will make sure to keep it set to Navigatrix. Thank you again, Moe!
Oh, yes those setting planets can play foul tricks... I raced against a friend of mine with motorcycle one time, he had a Jawa with a large pale yellow headlight... No matter how fast I was going, he kept sneaking back into my rearwiev mirror after each curve... after a half an hour at neck-breaking pace i pulled over and -alas- the rising moon low on the horizon looked just like my pal`s headlight If i could have Stellarium back then..