iOPTRON - Astronomy Technology Today

ASTRO TIPS
Lunar and Monthly Calendars
By Thad Floryan
This edition of the ATT Astro Tip represents
a bit of a departure from its normal
tip fare. Friend of the magazine, Thad
Floryan, has posted a collection of excellent
calendars on ATT’s forum, http://tech.
groups.yahoo.com/group/astronomytechn
ologytoday/ and we thought we’d share
them with you here. Downloadable PDFs
can be found in the files section of the ATT
group. Thad has also added links to the calendars
at the AstronomyHacks forum,
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/astro
nomyhacks/, source of more than a few of
the tips that have been shared in these pages
recent years.
About the calendars, Thad humbly
notes: “They’re not actually ‘my’ calendars
other than the fact I ran two programs that
were authored by another person to create
the specific calendars I posted. In other
words, the only credit I can take is that of an
operator of the two programs. :-)”
“Here are the present author’s pages for
the C versions of the programs: (1)
http://pcal.sourceforge.net/ (PCAL and
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LCAL PostScript Calendar Programs),
which page can be considered to be the
‘manual’ for both the PCAL and LCAL
programs, and the page also has some
examples of the output of both programs;
and (2) http://sourceforge.net/projects/
pcal/ for the downloads. Both the source
code in a UNIX tar file and executables of
PCAL and LCAL for Windows are available
at the later URL.”
“Again, please note both programs
were originally written on and for UNIX
systems and subsequently have been ported
to Linux, MacOS and Windows.”
With lunar-phase apps just a few
swipes away via the smartphones and tablets
that are becoming so integral to our daily
lives, it’s easy to forget just how handy it is
to have a printed calendar posted nearby –
a calendar that tell us at a glance precisely
what the Moon is about, no swiping needed.
Thanks, Thad!
72 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY