Calendars
Over the past few years, I have been adding different astronomical events to an iCal calendar, mainly the moons and seasons. I've built up a pretty good calendar and decided to make it available to others as an iCalendar/vCalendar (ics) subscription.
Astronomical Calendar (includes Moon Phases and Lunar Eclipses)
For iCal and iPhone subscriptions: webcal://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moons-Seasons.ics
For others: http://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moons-Seasons.ics
The main astronomical calendar contains everything in this list as all-day events, at least from 2012 to 2020, and includes the Moon Phases and Lunar Eclipse calendars from below. Many events contain Wikipedia links and notes.
For others: http://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moons-Seasons.ics
The main astronomical calendar contains everything in this list as all-day events, at least from 2012 to 2020, and includes the Moon Phases and Lunar Eclipse calendars from below. Many events contain Wikipedia links and notes.
- Moon phases - see below
- Lunar eclipses - see below
- Full moon names - the full moon names, like Harvest Moon.
- Aphelion/Perihelion - the apogee and perigee of the sun.
- Blue moons - contains both the original seasonal definition (3rd full moon in season of 4) and the erroneous modern definition (2 full moons in a month) and each event is marked accordingly.
- Black moons - contains all four definitions I could find and each event is marked accordingly.
- Solstice/Equilux - contains the day of each solstice and each equilux (the day of an equinox).
- Meteorological seasons - marks the start of each meteorological season, as opposed to the astronomical seasons that start with a solstice or equinox.
Notes
* The all day events are specific to the Central time zone. Because an astronomical event occurs at a specific time, the day it takes place may be different depending on your time zone. In particular, blue moons may occur in a different month or not at all, depending on your time zone. This doesn't happen in too many cases, so if you are within several time zones of Central, you probably won't run into this problem. However, if you are on the other side of the world, be wary of the all-day events. If they are moon related, match them to the moon phases, which are time-specific and universal.* Seasons are labeled for the Northern hemisphere. Just reverse the naming for the Southern hemisphere.
Moon Phases
This is included in the Astronomical Calendar above, so you won't need this if you are subscribing to the main calendar.
For iCal and iPhone subscriptions: webcal://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moon Phases.ics
For others: http://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moon Phases.ics
This calendar contains the quarter phases of the moon up to 2040 and crescent and gibbous moons up to 2015. These are set at specific times that are accurate to within 3 minutes either direction.
For iCal and iPhone subscriptions: webcal://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moon Phases.ics
For others: http://pirate.monkeyness.com/calendars/Moon Phases.ics
This calendar contains the quarter phases of the moon up to 2040 and crescent and gibbous moons up to 2015. These are set at specific times that are accurate to within 3 minutes either direction.
Lunar Eclipses
This calendar contains total, partial, and penumbral lunar eclipses up to 2040 and are labeled accordingly. These are set at specific times that are accurate to within 3 minutes either direction.
