Moonrise & Moonset ... what're they good for?

[123]

I found some code to calculate the start of Dusk and Dawn (Civil/Nautical/Astronomical) and it also calculates Moonrise and Moonset. Now that's handy ... or is it?

Does anyone know a reason why you'd trigger a Home Automation event based on the rising or setting of the moon?

Over the course of a lunar month, Moonrise and Moonset occur almost anywhere during the day. In fact, on some days the moon never rises or sets (or both)! What event benefits from such an oddball schedule?

On the other hand, the Moon's phase is used to calculate the date of various religious holidays. Knowing if an evening will be illuminated (or not) by a full moon could be useful.

Your thoughts?

 

[jb_sgf]

I for one would like a copy of the code (been looking off and on for awhile). Can you post where you found it?

I don't have a big need for it just always thought it would be fun to add that to my Home grwon software.

 

[aehusted]

I suppose you could use it to calculate your local tidal schedule, but I assume there are much better ways to do this using data from NOAA.
The tides are quite important to boaters.

Your thoughts?

 

[kwilcox]

Automated notifications could be a lifesaver if your significant other suffers from lycanthropy...

 

[123]

I for one would like a copy of the code ...

Java, C#, Javascript, VB ... there are plenty of examples ranging from the sophisticated (implemented as classes) to the ordinary (plain old functions). My quest was to find an example in VBScript and that was akin to asking for PL1 or Ada. I considered translating Javascript examples to VBS but it would've required a heckuva lot of testing to ensure I didn't screw up the logic.

Eventually I found this resource which included an example in (gulp) BASIC. Fortunately, I found a VBScript example on the Homeseer board that appeared to be a translation of the ancient BASIC version.

The Homeseer version had been stripped down to handle Moonrise/set exclusively. My version restores Sunrise and Sunset, Dusk and Dawn (Civil/Nautical/Astronomical) and handles DST adjustments. I also prettified the code to make it more legible.

 

[123]

... suffers from lycanthropy...

Hmm, wouldn't just knowing the Moon's phase cover that problem? I better check that on Wikipedia ...

 

[Lagerhead]

Your thoughts?

I have been looking for this, on and off, also.

The master bedroom is situated so that on certain days, especially if it is clear, the early-morning moon floods the room with light. This is annoying. I would like to predict these occurrences and close the curtains before retiring.

 

[123]

... the early-morning moon floods the room with light ... I would like to predict these occurrences and close the curtains ...

There's an interesting application yet not one that is fully addressed by simply knowing the Moon's rise and set times. You'd have to know its position in the sky, and its phase, to determine if it would be casting light into your room.

This link shows the moon's activity for September 2008 (Montreal, QC, Canada). Let's say we're only concerned with the moon when it is between its first and third quarters (i.e. big enough to reflect an annoying amount of light). Notice its behaviour on September 17th when it sets at 9:20AM (it was up since the previous evening) and rises at 7:41 PM to party all night again. So when does it shine into Lagerhead's room? Well, the "Time" column represents "high noon" for the moon so it is at its highest at 2:11 AM ... potentially a problem. However, "highest" varies with the moon's age so we can't conclude it will always be an annoyingly bright during "High Moon". Tricky stuff.

Moonrise and moonset times appear to be a starting point for other calculations but not too useful by themselves.

 

[jb_sgf]

Thanks

 

[Lagerhead]

You'd have to know its position in the sky, and its phase, to determine if it would be casting light into your room.

Arrgh. Next you will say that right ascension and declination are going to be part of this mess.

But I may start a record of these instances to establish empirically a correlation with moon position.

Thank you for this data.