| storyr |
02-03-2007 01:09 PM |
Quote:
lunatic
adjective
1. insane and believed to be affected by the phases of the moon
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I didn't care for the way WeatherPanel handled the phase - 1st quarter on 01/25/07. It showed the percent illuminated as 39%, but showed the first quarter icon (which is 50%) - which was too big of a jump (it looked odd to me). To determine why, I looked at the updated phase table and found that the moon was at 39% at the start of the day (UT), and the first quarter occurred at 23:01 UT that same day - a 23 hour difference.
WeatherPanel, on days that a phase occurs, shows the "phase" icon (s1, s2, s3 or s4) and not the regular moon icon that corresponds to the percent illuminated. That's why it was showing the 1st quarter icon (50%), even though the display read 39%.
So, to improved this, I've updated the internal moon table to measure the percent illuminated at noon UT, instead of midnight. This way, on days that a phase occurs, the maximum discrepancy between the percent illuminated and the phase icon will be 12 hours (instead of 24). With this change, the first quarter on January 25th would have read 45% (instead of 39%) - a slight improvement. When using the more refined moon icon set, this makes for a much smoother transition when viewing a "moon forecast".
Attached to the first post in this thread are updated WeatherPanel DLL's for v2.5.1, v2.5.0 and TRIAL08. These contain an updated moon table using a noon (UT) reference for the percent (from this site). BONUS: The table now goes through the end of 2008
Current moon phase online |
