Sandaysoft

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me where Cumulus gets its moon images from ?
I am trying to add my own set. When I put my moon image into
the images folder it gets changed back.

Paul

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Weather: http://www.g0hwc.com/weather
Ham Radio: http://www.g0hwc.com
TruckCam: http://www.truckcam.tv

It's a 'grab' of the image on the Cumulus main screen, and it gets re-created every web update. So if you want to use your own images, you'll have to use a different file name.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Many thanks for the quick reply Steve.
one last question:
is the moon.bmp masked to show phase or is it a range of images ?

Paul

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Weather: http://www.g0hwc.com/weather
Ham Radio: http://www.g0hwc.com
TruckCam: http://www.truckcam.tv

It's one image, masked.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Hi Paul,
Most of the information you need should be here: http://weather.gktnet.com/public/weather/Moon%20Phases.zip
There is a text file included with php, html, and javascript code examples.

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Graeme.
http://weather.gktnet.com/cumulus/index.htm

Link and your site are down buddy.


Edit: Seems to be ok now. Thanks for the link.

Many thanks for the info GraemeT,

I now have the new images fully working on my pages

Paul

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Weather: http://www.g0hwc.com/weather
Ham Radio: http://www.g0hwc.com
TruckCam: http://www.truckcam.tv

I've had this on my site for a few days now, but i've noticed a problem. It was on waning gibbous for a few days, then it went to last quarter last night, and in less than 12 hours it's on waning crescent. But it's only just gone to 49% lit but it looks like it's only a day away from a new moon. It seems to change too quickly.

I'm having the same issue. Acccording to this website last quarter is 10:42 today so I would expect to see that phase and not a waning crescent.

New Moon is not until 15:03 on 19 June so I would expect to see a waning crescent sometime between 14-16 June.

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Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

Hi Ray and Mapantz,
I'm no astronomer, so I can only go by the information I'm presented with and according to Cumulus' data, we're in day 22 with 49% of the moon still visible, which is a waning crescent.
In any case, waning crescent is within that last quarter....

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Graeme.
http://weather.gktnet.com/cumulus/index.htm

'Last Quarter' is a very short phase. 'Waning Crescent' is 1 to 49% visible. Currrently, just under 49% is visible, hence 'Waning Crescent'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Graeme / Steve,

I used to study astronomy many years ago but I think this is more of an arithmetical problem that astronomical.

Can we really describe a moon lit to 49% of its surface as waning / waxing crescent? I would argue it's currently closer to first / last quarter than waning. I suggest it's only a crescent when less than 37% of its visible surface is lit. 37% being half-way between 50% and 25%.

Another way of looking at this is to break the moon's 8 phases into New - Waxing Cres - First Qtr - Waxing Gib - Full - Waning Gib - Last Qtr and Waning Cres and to give each phase equal treatment. That way you'll see each phase for the same length of time which seems logical.

If you visit the British Astronomical Association's website they are currently describing the moon's phase as Last Quarter. Perhaps a more authoratative source than Wikipedia?

That site also has code you can paste onto your website which will show the current phase. Registration is free. http://www.calculatorcat.com/moon_phase ... ases.phtml

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Cheers,
Ray, Cheshire.

Here's another link, one you might consider "more authoritative". According to the web site of the US Naval Observatory (my emphasis): "The percent of the Moon's surface illuminated is a more refined, quantitative description of the Moon's appearance than is the phase. Considering the Moon as a circular disk, the ratio of the area illuminated by direct sunlight to its total area is the fraction of the Moon's surface illuminated; multiplied by 100, it is the percent illuminated. At New Moon the percent illuminated is 0; at First and Last Quarters it is 50%; and at Full Moon it is 100%. During the crescent phases the percent illuminated is between 0 and 50% and during gibbous phases it is between 50% and 100%."

http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/astronomical-information-center/phases-percent-moon

If you'd like to give me a definitive reference for the mapping of percentage visibility to lunar phase, I can consider changing Cumulus at some point.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Obviously, there's only 8 images for the moon phase, but it shows twice as much darkness than what the front of cumulus is showing.
It's not a major concern, i just wondered if anything can be done to improve GraemeT's icons?

Here's a snapshot of the moon showing on cumulus;

http://i46.tinypic.com/avhsia.png

And here's my site;

http://www.wareham-weather.co.uk/

Regards.

As some mentioned above, isn't this just an arithmetic problem?

The phases, full, quarter etc are strictly 'instants' in time, that are gone the next instant. However as humans we like to 'see' the Moon presented on the web page as 'first quarter' etc for a period of time around that instant. Generally in my software try and present the 'instantaneous phases' for the whole day on which they occur, then revert to the waxing/waning xxxxx description for the rest of the time.

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Mark
Wilmslow Astro Weather