--- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
Kurt, that's really helpful! I've printed it out. In past years I have downloaded tables from the National Observatory in Washington, and noted where the new moons are, to give myself a rough idea of good nights for astronomy. This is much better . . .
Joe, Your're welcome. The number of hours is approx to the nearest hour. I downloaded the USNO tables for astronomical twilight and moon-rise/set into a spreadsheet and then forced an estimate. But it's sufficient for quick planning purposes. I've uploaded a beefed-up table that includes average number and percent of cloudy and clear days per month. http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/2006SLCMoonlessHours.h... I wanted something simplier than the S&T annual sky calendar that I could throw in a briefcase and that would show me DSO dark sky frames at an glance - and still get me into bed at a reasonable hour. For example, in May, I can forget about DSOs until after May 20; Pioneer Day looks like a good astronomy vacation weekend; July 4 and Labor Day do not. For lunar observers, I've also prepared and uploaded an inverse table of hours of moonlight before midnight - http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/2006SLCLunarHours.html The lunar table is a prelminary version. In the next few months, I intend to throw together some lunar colongitude code and revise the table showing the selenographic longitude of the lunar terminator at 9:00pm on each good "lunar night." - Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com