One of these days ... To the moon, Alice!

[JayT]

Hello out there:

I was hoping to find a few geeks who like to do their own numerical astro-programming, rather than only using the free software found on the Internet.  I use PHP for my work, since it can handle massive astronomical computations far beyond the reach of Java script.

It seems like doing your own astro-computing from scratch is a fading art, so I'm trying to keep it alive on the Internet.  Right now, I'm concentrating on the moon.  Not the Jean Meeus moon, but the NASA/JPL DE405 moon, which is much more accurate (theoretically to the nearest second and lunar distance to within ±0.01 km).

 

If you like to study the moon, here are a few examples of the kind of programming I'm referring to above.

http://neoprogrammics.com/index/moon/Lunar_Ephemeris_Statistics_Calculator.php
This program computes the basic lunar ephemeris statistics and phase for any given moment.

http://neoprogrammics.com/current_lunar_phase_4/
This virtual HD lunar telescope is ideal for cloudy nights when the moon is invisible and you still want to explore it anyway.  It allows you to virtually view the moon from four sides - left, right, front and far side in HD detail (1500 x 1500 pixel resolution and at any selected relative phase angle from 0 to 360 degrees.  Nothing too fancy yet, just an easy way to view the moon in fine detail.  I may eventually add North/South polar views in the future - maybe.  There's a lot of work involved, but so far the virtual lunar telescope is working out rather well.

http://neoprogrammics.com/index/moon/Full_Year_Lunar_Events_Calculator.php
This program displays a schedule of all lunar phases, apogees and perigees for any year from 1600 to 2200, adjusted for   any time zone.  It makes it very easy to find all blue moons, black moons, super-moons and months with 2 apogees or perigees.  It takes approximately 8-10 seconds to compute a complete lunar events ephemeris for an entire year.

All the programs are written in PHP and the lunar images were rendered by a FREEware rendering package called POV-Ray.  The complete source code and graphics resources required to generate all these images or any user-defined custom view, is freely available as well, should anyone have an interest.

Any opinions are welcome, especially from those scientifically inclined to do their own personal astro-computing from scratch.

If anyone here has a PHP-based web site designed to perform astronomical computations, I'd like to hear from them and perhaps exchange some astronomy programming source code, ideas and tips.  I also have PHP programs for computing very accurate ephemerides for the sun, all the planets, Pluto and 15 major asteroids.

EXAMPLE:
Below is an example output for 2016 from the Full Year Lunar Events Calculator program mentioned above.

*******************************************************************************
BASIC LUNAR EVENTS FOR THE YEAR 2016 (UT)


===============================================================================
January 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457389.73025407  2016 Jan 02  05:30:24  Sat  Last Quarter Moon
2457389.99593187  2016 Jan 02  11:52:59  Sat  Apogee  at 251206 mi = 404277 km
2457397.56365929  2016 Jan 10  01:30:30  Sun  New Moon
2457402.59366625  2016 Jan 15  02:13:43  Fri  Perigee at 229671 mi = 369619 km
2457404.47742367  2016 Jan 16  23:26:19  Sat  First Quarter Moon
2457411.57422155  2016 Jan 24  01:45:43  Sun  Full Moon
2457417.88258491  2016 Jan 30  09:09:45  Sat  Apogee  at 251377 mi = 404553 km

There are two lunar apogees in January of 2016 in time zone UT+00:00.

===============================================================================
February 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457419.64510908  2016 Feb 01  03:27:47  Mon  Last Quarter Moon
2457427.11114979  2016 Feb 08  14:38:53  Mon  New Moon
2457429.61233212  2016 Feb 11  02:40:35  Thu  Perigee at 226403 mi = 364360 km
2457433.82472513  2016 Feb 15  07:46:26  Mon  First Quarter Moon
2457441.26458329  2016 Feb 22  18:19:50  Mon  Full Moon
2457445.64524249  2016 Feb 27  03:27:59  Sat  Apogee  at 251893 mi = 405383 km

===============================================================================
March 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457449.46654068  2016 Mar 01  23:10:39  Tue  Last Quarter Moon
2457456.58029536  2016 Mar 09  01:54:28  Wed  New Moon
2457457.79501594  2016 Mar 10  07:03:39  Thu  Perigee at 223389 mi = 359510 km
2457463.21113987  2016 Mar 15  17:02:52  Tue  First Quarter Moon
2457471.00137190  2016 Mar 23  12:00:49  Wed  Full Moon
2457473.09584941  2016 Mar 25  14:16:51  Fri  Apogee  at 252355 mi = 406125 km
2457479.13749048  2016 Mar 31  15:16:49  Thu  Last Quarter Moon

There are two last quarter moons in March of 2016 in time zone UT+00:00.

===============================================================================
April 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457485.97555150  2016 Apr 07  11:23:38  Thu  New Moon
2457486.23380509  2016 Apr 07  17:35:31  Thu  Perigee at 221931 mi = 357163 km
2457492.66699018  2016 Apr 14  03:59:18  Thu  First Quarter Moon
2457500.17093164  2016 Apr 21  16:04:58  Thu  Apogee  at 252495 mi = 406351 km
2457500.72550971  2016 Apr 22  05:23:34  Fri  Full Moon
2457508.64573447  2016 Apr 30  03:28:41  Sat  Last Quarter Moon

===============================================================================
May 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457514.67669480  2016 May 06  04:13:16  Fri  Perigee at 222344 mi = 357827 km
2457515.31294517  2016 May 06  19:29:28  Fri  New Moon
2457522.21060564  2016 May 13  17:02:06  Fri  First Quarter Moon
2457527.42169214  2016 May 18  22:06:04  Wed  Apogee  at 252235 mi = 405933 km
2457530.38580394  2016 May 21  21:14:23  Sat  Full Moon
2457538.00911387  2016 May 29  12:11:57  Sun  Last Quarter Moon

===============================================================================
June 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457542.95543030  2016 Jun 03  10:54:39  Fri  Perigee at 224402 mi = 361140 km
2457544.62550516  2016 Jun 05  02:59:34  Sun  New Moon
2457551.84093483  2016 Jun 12  08:09:47  Sun  First Quarter Moon
2457555.00107087  2016 Jun 15  12:00:23  Wed  Apogee  at 251670 mi = 405024 km
2457559.96073255  2016 Jun 20  11:02:17  Mon  Full Moon
2457567.26374081  2016 Jun 27  18:18:37  Mon  Last Quarter Moon

===============================================================================
July 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457570.77895420  2016 Jul 01  06:40:32  Fri  Perigee at 227411 mi = 365983 km
2457573.95982386  2016 Jul 04  11:00:59  Mon  New Moon
2457581.53677331  2016 Jul 12  00:51:47  Tue  First Quarter Moon
2457582.72587150  2016 Jul 13  05:24:05  Wed  Apogee  at 251201 mi = 404269 km
2457589.45674730  2016 Jul 19  22:56:33  Tue  Full Moon
2457596.45889452  2016 Jul 26  22:59:38  Tue  Last Quarter Moon
2457596.98478489  2016 Jul 27  11:36:55  Wed  Perigee at 229698 mi = 369662 km

There are two lunar perigees in July of 2016 in time zone UT+00:00.

===============================================================================
August 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457603.36505797  2016 Aug 02  20:44:31  Tue  New Moon
2457610.50399701  2016 Aug 10  00:04:35  Wed  Apogee  at 251197 mi = 404262 km
2457611.26526116  2016 Aug 10  18:20:49  Wed  First Quarter Moon
2457618.89424164  2016 Aug 18  09:26:32  Thu  Full Moon
2457622.55544259  2016 Aug 22  01:18:40  Mon  Perigee at 228074 mi = 367050 km
2457625.65414698  2016 Aug 25  03:40:48  Thu  Last Quarter Moon

===============================================================================
September 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457632.87794313  2016 Sep 01  09:03:04  Thu  New Moon
2457638.28184921  2016 Sep 06  18:44:42  Tue  Apogee  at 251689 mi = 405055 km
2457640.99306322  2016 Sep 09  11:48:51  Fri  First Quarter Moon
2457648.29599287  2016 Sep 16  19:05:04  Fri  Full Moon
2457650.20940284  2016 Sep 18  17:00:22  Sun  Perigee at 224872 mi = 361896 km
2457654.91471884  2016 Sep 23  09:56:02  Fri  Last Quarter Moon

===============================================================================
October 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457662.50868953  2016 Oct 01  00:11:21  Sat  New Moon
2457665.96132602  2016 Oct 04  11:03:09  Tue  Apogee  at 252336 mi = 406096 km
2457670.69037558  2016 Oct 09  04:32:58  Sun  First Quarter Moon
2457677.68349491  2016 Oct 16  04:23:04  Sun  Full Moon
2457678.48262219  2016 Oct 16  23:33:49  Sun  Perigee at 222364 mi = 357861 km
2457684.30202537  2016 Oct 22  19:13:45  Sat  Last Quarter Moon
2457692.23563297  2016 Oct 30  17:38:09  Sun  New Moon
2457693.31250065  2016 Oct 31  19:28:50  Mon  Apogee  at 252688 mi = 406662 km

There are two new moons in October of 2016 in time zone UT+00:00.
A second new moon within the same calendar month is called a 'Black Moon'.

There are two lunar apogees in October of 2016 in time zone UT+00:00.

===============================================================================
November 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457700.32795017  2016 Nov 07  19:51:05  Mon  First Quarter Moon
2457706.97378346  2016 Nov 14  11:21:05  Mon  Perigee at 221524 mi = 356509 km
2457707.07860523  2016 Nov 14  13:52:01  Mon  Full Moon
2457713.85717697  2016 Nov 21  08:33:10  Mon  Last Quarter Moon
2457720.33980313  2016 Nov 27  20:08:09  Sun  Apogee  at 252621 mi = 406554 km
2457722.01344611  2016 Nov 29  12:18:12  Tue  New Moon

===============================================================================
December 2016 - Basic Lunar Events For Time Zone UT+00:00
Applied NASA Delta T = +00:01:10

     JD TT           Date      Time UT   DoW            Lunar Event
----------------  -----------  --------  ---  --------------------------------
2457729.87788091  2016 Dec 07  09:02:59  Wed  First Quarter Moon
2457735.47931956  2016 Dec 12  23:29:03  Mon  Perigee at 222737 mi = 358461 km
2457736.50464604  2016 Dec 14  00:05:31  Wed  Full Moon
2457743.58115567  2016 Dec 21  01:55:42  Wed  Last Quarter Moon
2457747.74718345  2016 Dec 25  05:54:47  Sun  Apogee  at 252196 mi = 405870 km
2457751.78772595  2016 Dec 29  06:53:10  Thu  New Moon
===============================================================================