Moon can show satellite position

[polgyver]

Hi, everybody, this is my first post. I registered more than one year ago and benefited a lot from reading members' friendly advice. Now is the time to contribute, too... Recently I have read posts about Sun fade time and would like to propose using a very useful web site, where users can determine positions of Sun or Moon for every minute of every day. The link could be found by googling Sun or Moon altitude azimuth Navy (sorry, I tried to paste this link, many times, but my post was always denied).

The Sun "goes" behind every satellite only twice a year, but the Moon more often, maybe more than 20 (?) times a year. No risk for eyes, too... The Moon changes the height of its orbit (altitude) by about 5 degrees every day (night). Helps determine if certain tree or even its branch obscures satellite. Of course, satellite co-ordinates are needed and its azimuth should be compared to Moon's azimuth. Then the time (hour and minute) can be found and altitude. Re-calculating the table for other days can give a date when the Moon will be behind satellite, or slightly higher or lower, where small interpolation can help, knowing that Moon's face is seen at half a degree. Greetings to all members. Polgyver

 

[RT-Cat]

Sounds like an interesting program. I do not know for sure but you may have to be a Pub member to post links. Welcome to the fourm, one year late. Or would that be later?

RT

 

[Conky]

that's an awesome idea. very stonehenge-esque. If the moon is full or close it can provide enough light to use the locate-dish-wherever-the shadows-aren't method. now all we need is a programmer to make a program that would combine a satellite finder with a sun/moon location program so all we'd have to do is pug in our latitude, longitude and desired satellite and it woul spit out dates of satellite eclipses

 

[navychop]

I think it's 5 posts or so to post links.

 

[polgyver]

On my first attempt I inserted 2 links, as the Navy program distinguishes between US territory and the rest of the world (US citizens have it easier, as they need to input town and state only. The rest has to know their co-ordinates converted to degree-minute format, and to know time zone). The program denied my post as there was only one link allowed. I removed the second,"world" link - but I got still denials, despite various re-editing. Finally I removed the first link and the post went through. But the denial did not contain any info about previous posts nor any condition to be a pub member. However, Google helps to get to this program.

 

[polgyver]

I think that looking up to the sky where the Moon is at certain time is easier than looking for shadows of its light. Particularly at cottage country, to find a gap between trees, or to decide which branch has to be removed. Computer program which you mentioned, would be nice to have. However, without such a program, some 15-20 minutes of Navy site usage would supply eclipse data for next few months, maybe a year...

 

[eurosport]

I think it's 5 posts or so to post links.

That's what I was thinking...5 posts.

 

[turbosat]

It's probably the Naval Observatory site, I use it sometimes to find the times of the moon phases. Google "complete sun and moon data for one day" and you'll find it.

 

[polgyver]

That's what I was thinking...5 posts.

Thanks a lot, navychop and eurosport, for your encouragement to answer your posts and thus to achieve this magic number 5 posts. Regardless, it would be even better to have this condition for inserting links spelled out in general rules for this wonderful site. Or, maybe I overlooked something?

 

[turbosat]

It's probably the Naval Observatory site, I use it sometimes to find the times of the moon phases. Google "complete sun and moon data for one day" and you'll find it.
edit: Here's the link but it appears to be down now. It's down A LOT, so try at different times.
Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day: U.S. Cities and Towns — Naval Oceanography Portal

 

[polgyver]

It's probably the Naval Observatory site, I use it sometimes to find the times of the moon phases. Google "complete sun and moon data for one day" and you'll find it.
edit: Here's the link but it appears to be down now. It's down A LOT, so try at different times.
Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day: U.S. Cities and Towns — Naval Oceanography Portal

That's the link, turbosat, thanks for help. I used it a lot, and never noticed it was inactive. As I am in Toronto, Canada, I have to use the "world" version of the table, so I convert digital fractions from co-ordinates to minutes and I put "4" as zone. When I choose "intervals" as 1 minute, the table gets very long and needs a lot of scrolling, but the data is very exact. The table also shows the percentage of Moon's face. Cheers, polgyver

 

[turbosat]

It's not inactive, just goes down a lot. Sometimes I have to check in the mornings to get it, maybe they do maintenance on the website at night. Or just have old equipment!