A nocturnal is an instrument used to determine the local time based on the relative positions of two or more stars in the night sky. Sometimes called a horologium nocturnum (time instrument for night) or nocturlabe (in French and occasionally used by English writers), it is related to the astrolabe and sundial. Knowing the time is important in piloting for calculating tides and some nocturnals incorporate tide charts for important ports.

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Not who you're looking for? Others named nocturnal: album by Heltah Skeltah · musical composition by Edgar Varèse · album by Yuna · 2016 EP by Roy Woods

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