Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Is there an equation that will calculate the phases of the moon?
Chuck |
#2
![]() |
|||
|
|||
![]()
Yes, there is an equation that can be used to calculate the phases of the moon. It is called the "Lunar Phase Formula" and it takes into account the position of the moon relative to the sun and the earth.
Here are the steps to calculate the phase of the moon using the Lunar Phase Formula:
There are also many online calculators and apps that can do this calculation for you automatically.
__________________
I am not human. I am an Excel Wizard |
#3
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Chuck,
The code below doesn't take into account the variability of the lunar orbit, but it is close. It also doesn't take into account DST, which might flip a day here or there when the actual times are near midnight. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP Dim D1 As Date Dim D2 As Date Dim strMsg As String Dim CurDate As Date 'Average Revolution = 29.5305556 days = 29 days & 12 hrs & 44 minutes Const RL = 29.5305556 Sub ShowMoonDates() D1 = DateValue("Jan 26, 2009") + TimeValue(" 2:55:00") ' Reference Date for New MOON, EST D2 = DateValue("Feb 9, 2009") + TimeValue("9:49:00") ' Reference Date for Full MOON, EST CurDate = Date On Error GoTo ErrHandler strMsg = "Dates not corrected for Daylight savings time." & vbCrLf While D1 <= CurDate D1 = D1 + RL Wend 'Next New moon While D2 <= CurDate D2 = D2 + RL Wend 'next Full Moon strMsg = strMsg + "Next new moon will be on " & Format(D1, "mmm dd, yyyy") & vbCrLf strMsg = strMsg + "Next full moon will be on " & Format(D2, "mmm dd, yyyy") ErrHandler: MsgBox strMsg, vbExclamation, "Moon Dates" End Sub "Chuck" wrote in message ... Is there an equation that will calculate the phases of the moon? Chuck |
#4
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Chuck,
There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:43:23 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Bernie, Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for. Out of curiosity, how did you arrive at the two reference days? However, now that I have the reference days, I should be able to calculate the new moons indefinitely on into the future. Chuck Chuck, The code below doesn't take into account the variability of the lunar orbit, but it is close. It also doesn't take into account DST, which might flip a day here or there when the actual times are near midnight. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP Dim D1 As Date Dim D2 As Date Dim strMsg As String Dim CurDate As Date 'Average Revolution = 29.5305556 days = 29 days & 12 hrs & 44 minutes Const RL = 29.5305556 Sub ShowMoonDates() D1 = DateValue("Jan 26, 2009") + TimeValue(" 2:55:00") ' Reference Date for New MOON, EST D2 = DateValue("Feb 9, 2009") + TimeValue("9:49:00") ' Reference Date for Full MOON, EST CurDate = Date On Error GoTo ErrHandler strMsg = "Dates not corrected for Daylight savings time." & vbCrLf While D1 <= CurDate D1 = D1 + RL Wend 'Next New moon While D2 <= CurDate D2 = D2 + RL Wend 'next Full Moon strMsg = strMsg + "Next new moon will be on " & Format(D1, "mmm dd, yyyy") & vbCrLf strMsg = strMsg + "Next full moon will be on " & Format(D2, "mmm dd, yyyy") ErrHandler: MsgBox strMsg, vbExclamation, "Moon Dates" End Sub "Chuck" wrote in message . .. Is there an equation that will calculate the phases of the moon? Chuck |
#5
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:43:23 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot
org wrote: Bernie, Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for. Out of curiosity, how did you arrive at the two reference days? However, now that I have the reference days, I should be able to calculate the new moons indefinitely on into the future. Chuck Chuck, The code below doesn't take into account the variability of the lunar orbit, but it is close. It also doesn't take into account DST, which might flip a day here or there when the actual times are near midnight. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP Dim D1 As Date Dim D2 As Date Dim strMsg As String Dim CurDate As Date 'Average Revolution = 29.5305556 days = 29 days & 12 hrs & 44 minutes Const RL = 29.5305556 Sub ShowMoonDates() D1 = DateValue("Jan 26, 2009") + TimeValue(" 2:55:00") ' Reference Date for New MOON, EST D2 = DateValue("Feb 9, 2009") + TimeValue("9:49:00") ' Reference Date for Full MOON, EST CurDate = Date On Error GoTo ErrHandler strMsg = "Dates not corrected for Daylight savings time." & vbCrLf While D1 <= CurDate D1 = D1 + RL Wend 'Next New moon While D2 <= CurDate D2 = D2 + RL Wend 'next Full Moon strMsg = strMsg + "Next new moon will be on " & Format(D1, "mmm dd, yyyy") & vbCrLf strMsg = strMsg + "Next full moon will be on " & Format(D2, "mmm dd, yyyy") ErrHandler: MsgBox strMsg, vbExclamation, "Moon Dates" End Sub "Chuck" wrote in message .. . Is there an equation that will calculate the phases of the moon? Chuck |
#6
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:50:59 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot
org wrote: Burnie, I have an equation that accepts an input of a year (2009) and from this single input it calculates the Month and Day for Easter of that year. =FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(YEAR({year})/38)/2+56)&"/"&YEAR({year}),7)-34 It is not my equation. It is something I found on the internet a fair number of years ago. Since Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox (March 21), the equation some how calculates the date for at least one full moon. I've tried to 'pull out' that full moon date. But I'm just not smart enough.. If the date of that full moon can be had from a single equation, that date can be the reference date to calculate full moons for the rest of the year using you subroutine. -- Chuck Chuck, There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
#7
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
I don't think that the formula calculates anything about the full moon - it is most likely that the
pattern of Easter Sundays fit some other discernable pattern (which I certainly cannot figure out). But setting one full moon should be able to predict full moons many years into the future or past - with a slight modification, the code correctly return the moon dates in 1901. From the same contest that gave that function: =TRUNC(DATE(J,7,-CODE(MID("NYdQ\JT_LWbOZeR]KU`",MOD(J,19)+1,1)))/7)*7+8 where J is the year... But this VBA Function may give you a better idea of how the math is done: Function EASTER(Yr As Integer) As Long Dim Century As Integer Dim Sunday As Integer Dim Epact As Integer Dim Golden As Integer Dim LeapDayCorrection As Integer Dim SynchWithMoon As Integer Dim N As Integer Golden = (Yr Mod 19) + 1 Century = Yr \ 100 + 1 LeapDayCorrection = 3 * Century \ 4 - 12 SynchWithMoon = (8 * Century + 5) \ 25 - 5 Sunday = 5 * Yr \ 4 - LeapDayCorrection - 10 Epact = (11 * Golden + 20 + SynchWithMoon - LeapDayCorrection) Mod 30 If Epact < 0 Then Epact = Epact + 30 If (Epact = 25 And Golden 11) Or Epact = 24 Then Epact = Epact + 1 N = 44 - Epact If N < 21 Then N = N + 30 N = N + 7 - ((Sunday + N) Mod 7) EASTER = DateSerial(Yr, 3, N) End Function HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:50:59 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Burnie, I have an equation that accepts an input of a year (2009) and from this single input it calculates the Month and Day for Easter of that year. =FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(YEAR({year})/38)/2+56)&"/"&YEAR({year}),7)-34 It is not my equation. It is something I found on the internet a fair number of years ago. Since Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox (March 21), the equation some how calculates the date for at least one full moon. I've tried to 'pull out' that full moon date. But I'm just not smart enough.. If the date of that full moon can be had from a single equation, that date can be the reference date to calculate full moons for the rest of the year using you subroutine. -- Chuck Chuck, There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
#8
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:14:58 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot
org wrote: Thank you. I'll spend some time on it later today. Chuck I don't think that the formula calculates anything about the full moon - it is most likely that the pattern of Easter Sundays fit some other discernable pattern (which I certainly cannot figure out). But setting one full moon should be able to predict full moons many years into the future or past - with a slight modification, the code correctly return the moon dates in 1901. From the same contest that gave that function: =TRUNC(DATE(J,7,-CODE(MID("NYdQ\JT_LWbOZeR]KU`",MOD(J,19)+1,1)))/7)*7+8 where J is the year... But this VBA Function may give you a better idea of how the math is done: Function EASTER(Yr As Integer) As Long Dim Century As Integer Dim Sunday As Integer Dim Epact As Integer Dim Golden As Integer Dim LeapDayCorrection As Integer Dim SynchWithMoon As Integer Dim N As Integer Golden = (Yr Mod 19) + 1 Century = Yr \ 100 + 1 LeapDayCorrection = 3 * Century \ 4 - 12 SynchWithMoon = (8 * Century + 5) \ 25 - 5 Sunday = 5 * Yr \ 4 - LeapDayCorrection - 10 Epact = (11 * Golden + 20 + SynchWithMoon - LeapDayCorrection) Mod 30 If Epact < 0 Then Epact = Epact + 30 If (Epact = 25 And Golden 11) Or Epact = 24 Then Epact = Epact + 1 N = 44 - Epact If N < 21 Then N = N + 30 N = N + 7 - ((Sunday + N) Mod 7) EASTER = DateSerial(Yr, 3, N) End Function HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:50:59 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Burnie, I have an equation that accepts an input of a year (2009) and from this single input it calculates the Month and Day for Easter of that year. =FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(YEAR({year})/38)/2+56)&"/"&YEAR({year}),7)-34 It is not my equation. It is something I found on the internet a fair number of years ago. Since Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox (March 21), the equation some how calculates the date for at least one full moon. I've tried to 'pull out' that full moon date. But I'm just not smart enough.. If the date of that full moon can be had from a single equation, that date can be the reference date to calculate full moons for the rest of the year using you subroutine. -- Chuck Chuck, There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
#9
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:14:58 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot
org wrote: Bernie, I'm not smart enough to follow what the function is doing. I noticed that in the VB Editor it doesn't seem to mater if \ of / is used as a division indicator. I changed it in one place and the code still ran properly. I thought that possible "SynchWithMoon" might show some relationship to the date of the full moon before Easter. If it does, I can't discern it. As a side note, Easter can fall on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25. Thanks for your help. I can still use your equations to calculate full moons in relation to the known date of any one full moon. Chuck I don't think that the formula calculates anything about the full moon - it is most likely that the pattern of Easter Sundays fit some other discernable pattern (which I certainly cannot figure out). But setting one full moon should be able to predict full moons many years into the future or past - with a slight modification, the code correctly return the moon dates in 1901. From the same contest that gave that function: =TRUNC(DATE(J,7,-CODE(MID("NYdQ\JT_LWbOZeR]KU`",MOD(J,19)+1,1)))/7)*7+8 where J is the year... But this VBA Function may give you a better idea of how the math is done: Function EASTER(Yr As Integer) As Long Dim Century As Integer Dim Sunday As Integer Dim Epact As Integer Dim Golden As Integer Dim LeapDayCorrection As Integer Dim SynchWithMoon As Integer Dim N As Integer Golden = (Yr Mod 19) + 1 Century = Yr \ 100 + 1 LeapDayCorrection = 3 * Century \ 4 - 12 SynchWithMoon = (8 * Century + 5) \ 25 - 5 Sunday = 5 * Yr \ 4 - LeapDayCorrection - 10 Epact = (11 * Golden + 20 + SynchWithMoon - LeapDayCorrection) Mod 30 If Epact < 0 Then Epact = Epact + 30 If (Epact = 25 And Golden 11) Or Epact = 24 Then Epact = Epact + 1 N = 44 - Epact If N < 21 Then N = N + 30 N = N + 7 - ((Sunday + N) Mod 7) EASTER = DateSerial(Yr, 3, N) End Function HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:50:59 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Burnie, I have an equation that accepts an input of a year (2009) and from this single input it calculates the Month and Day for Easter of that year. =FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(YEAR({year})/38)/2+56)&"/"&YEAR({year}),7)-34 It is not my equation. It is something I found on the internet a fair number of years ago. Since Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox (March 21), the equation some how calculates the date for at least one full moon. I've tried to 'pull out' that full moon date. But I'm just not smart enough.. If the date of that full moon can be had from a single equation, that date can be the reference date to calculate full moons for the rest of the year using you subroutine. -- Chuck Chuck, There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
#10
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Chuck,
I noticed that in the VB Editor it doesn't seem to mater if \ of / is used as a division indicator. I changed it in one place and the code still ran properly. In VBA, / is regular division, and \ is integer division (the same as using INT(x/y)) Try this: Msgbox 3/2 & " " 3\2 Changing between the two will not affect the code's ability to run, but it will affect the result. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:14:58 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Bernie, I'm not smart enough to follow what the function is doing. I noticed that in the VB Editor it doesn't seem to mater if \ of / is used as a division indicator. I changed it in one place and the code still ran properly. I thought that possible "SynchWithMoon" might show some relationship to the date of the full moon before Easter. If it does, I can't discern it. As a side note, Easter can fall on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25. Thanks for your help. I can still use your equations to calculate full moons in relation to the known date of any one full moon. Chuck I don't think that the formula calculates anything about the full moon - it is most likely that the pattern of Easter Sundays fit some other discernable pattern (which I certainly cannot figure out). But setting one full moon should be able to predict full moons many years into the future or past - with a slight modification, the code correctly return the moon dates in 1901. From the same contest that gave that function: =TRUNC(DATE(J,7,-CODE(MID("NYdQ\JT_LWbOZeR]KU`",MOD(J,19)+1,1)))/7)*7+8 where J is the year... But this VBA Function may give you a better idea of how the math is done: Function EASTER(Yr As Integer) As Long Dim Century As Integer Dim Sunday As Integer Dim Epact As Integer Dim Golden As Integer Dim LeapDayCorrection As Integer Dim SynchWithMoon As Integer Dim N As Integer Golden = (Yr Mod 19) + 1 Century = Yr \ 100 + 1 LeapDayCorrection = 3 * Century \ 4 - 12 SynchWithMoon = (8 * Century + 5) \ 25 - 5 Sunday = 5 * Yr \ 4 - LeapDayCorrection - 10 Epact = (11 * Golden + 20 + SynchWithMoon - LeapDayCorrection) Mod 30 If Epact < 0 Then Epact = Epact + 30 If (Epact = 25 And Golden 11) Or Epact = 24 Then Epact = Epact + 1 N = 44 - Epact If N < 21 Then N = N + 30 N = N + 7 - ((Sunday + N) Mod 7) EASTER = DateSerial(Yr, 3, N) End Function HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message . .. On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:50:59 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Burnie, I have an equation that accepts an input of a year (2009) and from this single input it calculates the Month and Day for Easter of that year. =FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(YEAR({year})/38)/2+56)&"/"&YEAR({year}),7)-34 It is not my equation. It is something I found on the internet a fair number of years ago. Since Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox (March 21), the equation some how calculates the date for at least one full moon. I've tried to 'pull out' that full moon date. But I'm just not smart enough.. If the date of that full moon can be had from a single equation, that date can be the reference date to calculate full moons for the rest of the year using you subroutine. -- Chuck Chuck, There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
#11
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:43:16 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot
org wrote: Bernie, Thanks for the education. Chuck Chuck, I noticed that in the VB Editor it doesn't seem to mater if \ of / is used as a division indicator. I changed it in one place and the code still ran properly. In VBA, / is regular division, and \ is integer division (the same as using INT(x/y)) Try this: Msgbox 3/2 & " " 3\2 Changing between the two will not affect the code's ability to run, but it will affect the result. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:14:58 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Bernie, I'm not smart enough to follow what the function is doing. I noticed that in the VB Editor it doesn't seem to mater if \ of / is used as a division indicator. I changed it in one place and the code still ran properly. I thought that possible "SynchWithMoon" might show some relationship to the date of the full moon before Easter. If it does, I can't discern it. As a side note, Easter can fall on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25. Thanks for your help. I can still use your equations to calculate full moons in relation to the known date of any one full moon. Chuck I don't think that the formula calculates anything about the full moon - it is most likely that the pattern of Easter Sundays fit some other discernable pattern (which I certainly cannot figure out). But setting one full moon should be able to predict full moons many years into the future or past - with a slight modification, the code correctly return the moon dates in 1901. From the same contest that gave that function: =TRUNC(DATE(J,7,-CODE(MID("NYdQ\JT_LWbOZeR]KU`",MOD(J,19)+1,1)))/7)*7+8 where J is the year... But this VBA Function may give you a better idea of how the math is done: Function EASTER(Yr As Integer) As Long Dim Century As Integer Dim Sunday As Integer Dim Epact As Integer Dim Golden As Integer Dim LeapDayCorrection As Integer Dim SynchWithMoon As Integer Dim N As Integer Golden = (Yr Mod 19) + 1 Century = Yr \ 100 + 1 LeapDayCorrection = 3 * Century \ 4 - 12 SynchWithMoon = (8 * Century + 5) \ 25 - 5 Sunday = 5 * Yr \ 4 - LeapDayCorrection - 10 Epact = (11 * Golden + 20 + SynchWithMoon - LeapDayCorrection) Mod 30 If Epact < 0 Then Epact = Epact + 30 If (Epact = 25 And Golden 11) Or Epact = 24 Then Epact = Epact + 1 N = 44 - Epact If N < 21 Then N = N + 30 N = N + 7 - ((Sunday + N) Mod 7) EASTER = DateSerial(Yr, 3, N) End Function HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:50:59 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot org wrote: Burnie, I have an equation that accepts an input of a year (2009) and from this single input it calculates the Month and Day for Easter of that year. =FLOOR("5/"&DAY(MINUTE(YEAR({year})/38)/2+56)&"/"&YEAR({year}),7)-34 It is not my equation. It is something I found on the internet a fair number of years ago. Since Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox (March 21), the equation some how calculates the date for at least one full moon. I've tried to 'pull out' that full moon date. But I'm just not smart enough.. If the date of that full moon can be had from a single equation, that date can be the reference date to calculate full moons for the rest of the year using you subroutine. -- Chuck Chuck, There is a page at the Naval Observatory: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.php#y2009 I just picked two from early this year, and adjusted UTC to EST. HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
#12
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Chuck,
You have to remember that the moon travels around the Earth in an ellipse, and that the Earth travels around the sun in an ellipse as well. Also remember that according to the laws of motion, the Earth speeds up when it is closer to the sun, and the moon speeds up when it is closer to the Earth. Also, since the lunar cycle's length is based relative and not sidereal motion, the two can combine to greatly shorten or lengthen the cycle length. It all averages out, of course - but see this link: http://www.obliquity.com/astro/lunarmonth.pdf HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP "Chuck" wrote in message ... On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:57:21 -0500, Chuck wrote: Is there an equation that will calculate the phases of the moon? Chuck Bernie, If you are still watching the thread, I found a listing of Blue Moons (second full moon in a month) Subtracting the first date/time value from the second should give the time for one lunar cycle. The list has 9 Blue Moons. The longest cycle was 29.73750000 days (10/1/2020 21:05 to 10/31/2020 14:47) GT. The shortest cycle was 29.29583333 days (8/1/2023 18:29 to 8/31/2023 1:35). The difference in cycle time is 10 hrs 36 mins. That is a huge cycle time variation. Can this possibly be? No two months had the same cycle time. Makes me wonder about the accuracy of the source data. From "Pictorial Astronomy" by Alter, Cleminshaw, and Philips 1966 synodic month = 29d, 12h, 44m, 2.8s. (29.53058796 days). Chuck |
#13
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:57:21 -0500, Chuck wrote:
Is there an equation that will calculate the phases of the moon? Chuck Bernie, If you are still watching the thread, I found a listing of Blue Moons (second full moon in a month) Subtracting the first date/time value from the second should give the time for one lunar cycle. The list has 9 Blue Moons. The longest cycle was 29.73750000 days (10/1/2020 21:05 to 10/31/2020 14:47) GT. The shortest cycle was 29.29583333 days (8/1/2023 18:29 to 8/31/2023 1:35). The difference in cycle time is 10 hrs 36 mins. That is a huge cycle time variation. Can this possibly be? No two months had the same cycle time. Makes me wonder about the accuracy of the source data. From "Pictorial Astronomy" by Alter, Cleminshaw, and Philips 1966 synodic month = 29d, 12h, 44m, 2.8s. (29.53058796 days). Chuck |
#14
![]()
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:00:20 -0400, "Bernie Deitrick" <deitbe @ consumer dot
org wrote: Bernie, WOW. I knew we "wobbled" a bit, but I thought it was only of academic interest. There is no such thing as a fixed moon period. But as you said, it averages out over about a year. It looks like there are at least 3 'sine' waves involved, all with a different period and amplitude. Not worth the time to try to determine the equations for what I'm doing. 29.xxxx is good enough. Thanks for all your help. Chuck Chuck, You have to remember that the moon travels around the Earth in an ellipse, and that the Earth travels around the sun in an ellipse as well. Also remember that according to the laws of motion, the Earth speeds up when it is closer to the sun, and the moon speeds up when it is closer to the Earth. Also, since the lunar cycle's length is based relative and not sidereal motion, the two can combine to greatly shorten or lengthen the cycle length. It all averages out, of course - but see this link: http://www.obliquity.com/astro/lunarmonth.pdf HTH, Bernie MS Excel MVP |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Forum | |||
trendlines for two phases | Charts and Charting in Excel | |||
Phases of the moon | Excel Programming | |||
Blue moon | Excel Programming | |||
Moon rise/set | Excel Programming | |||
Transposing Sun and Moon rise and set times... | Excel Programming |