Sailing has always been one of the primary branches of the economy of all famous cultures. Sailing, as a main branch has been developing for centuries and has shown great progress in the field of technology development and positioning instruments. Chronologically, instruments have become more and more modern until the appearance of a modern sextant we know today. Autonomy of astronomical position providing methods prow to be key to survival in modern technological times. The first devices such as astrolabe and kamal gave the values that today are considered inaccurate if we compare them with today's sextant-measured heights. Davis quadrant and Hadley quadrant are considered as recent versions that have shown progress in precision, but still we have not met desired practicality and precision using those instruments at that time. The historical development of instruments for measuring the height of celestial bodies in Astronomical Navigation was a long-lasting process that still continues today with the purpose of increasing the accuracy and greater reliance on the positions of the ship obtained through this method. Much attention should be paid to the sextant that has emerged from hundreds of years of progress and improvement, especially because it is an integral part of every navigation's bridge inventory.