Eclipse Web Siteby Fred Espenak, GSFC Planetary Systems Laboratory

SKYCAL - Sky Events Calendar

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Introduction

There is always something interesting happening in the sky. The Moon cycles through its phases and occasionally passes near a bright planet. Sometimes the Moon eclipses the Sun. And sometimes the Moon itself is eclipsed as it passes through Earth's shadow. The planets move against the stars and are most prominent at opposition (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) or at greatest elongation (Mercury and Venus). Earth makes its annual orbit around the Sun and passes through its four seasons.

SKYCAL (Sky Events Calendar) will help you keep track of the sky by calculating the local date and time of all these celestial happenings. It displays them on a convenient calendar that you can print and hang on the wall. You can generate a calendar for a single month or for an entire year. Just choose your Time Zone.

To use SKYCAL, make your selections in three simple steps:

Section 1: Select a Time Zone for the calendar you wish to generate.
Section 2: Select the sky events to include in the calendar (moon phases, eclipses, planet positions, meteor showers, etc).
Section 3: Select the year or year and month of the calendar.

For time zones in North America and Europe, a Daylight Saving Time (DST) control appears that can be toggled on or off. In most of North America, DST is observed from the second Sunday of March through the first Sunday of November. In Europe, DST is called Summer Time (ST). ST is observed from the last Sunday of March through the last Sunday of Octomber. The initial settings of SKYCAL (Time Zone & DST) are based on the time zone setting in your computer's internal clock.

All sky events in section 2 are selected by default. Change them as needed. In Section 3, enter the year or year and month of your calendar. At present, SKYCAL works for all years from 1801 through 2100. This range will increase soon. You can select calendars other than the western Gregorian Calendar by clicking the Other Calendars button and choosing a calendar from the drop-down menu.

Besides the traditional 7-day per week calendar format, you can also display the sky events in a table (opened in a new window). This format shows additional information about many events because it has more room to display the extra data. The table can be printed and saved.

To learn more about SKYCAL, see About the Sky Events Calendar. Related links include:

Section 1: Time Zone

Select Time Zone:

Use Summer Time for part of the year: Yes No

Section 2: Sky Events


Select Sky Events:	Lunar Phases Eclipses Equinoxes/Solstices	Moon Apogee/Perigee Moon-Planet Conjunctions Planet Events	Meteor Showers

Section 3: Time Period of Calendar

Calendar: Julian/Gregorian Calendar Other Calendar

Year: Month:

Week begins on: Sunday (Western) Monday (Latin/Asian) Saturday (Near Eastern)

Generate Sky Calendar:
Generate Sky Events Table:

Calendar of Events

2011 January
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
27	28 Last Quarter 04:18	29	30	31	1 Venus 46.8° W Moon-Antares 18:07	2 Moon S Dec 10:06 Moon-Mercury 14:32
3 Moon A Node 12:48 Perihelion 19:59	4 Quadrantids 01:14 Par Solar Ec 08:52 New Moon 09:03	5	6	7	8 Venus West 14:59	9 Mercury West 13:59
10 Moon Apogee 05:38	11	12 First Quarter 11:31	13	14	15 Moon-Pleiades 12:39	16 Moon N Dec 22:51
17	18 Moon D Node 00:06	19 Full Moon 21:21	20	21	22 Moon Perigee 00:10	23
24	25	26 Last Quarter 12:57	27	28 Moon-Antares 23:53	29 Moon S Dec 16:26	30 Moon-Venus 03:36 Moon A Node 18:29
31	1 Venus 45.4° W	2	3 New Moon 02:31	4 Mars Sun 16:49	5	6 Moon Apogee 23:13