Frequently Asked Questions about the Astronomical Pocket Diary
this page is still in labour...
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Q: What are those 3 numbers beneath the graph of the daily moon-phase?
A: ... how full the moon is, how far away the moon is, and how far
north/south the moon is...
Q: For which time are the calculated?
A: The three numbers are calculated for around 0h UT (or GMT)
Q: Why does the 2nd number sometimes NOT go to zero, before it rises again?
A: Simple... the Moon sometimes doesn't come to its closest possible
point to earth.
Q: Why aren't the names and magnitudes of the stars to be occulted
mentioned?
A: no room ... but the magnitude of the star to be occulted is
symbolised by the size of the black dot on the "moon perimeter"
line. However, most occulted stars are dim and therefore it seems
that there is no dot at all on the "perimeter line". The name is
mentioned in the "daily text", if the star is kind of bright and
has a name. Any given occultation pertains to a star being
brighter than magnitude 6.8 and thats already quite dim, at least
for naked eye observers.
Q: Can you explain the little "tides-contraption"?
A: You see a vertical line, and a few little horizontal lines
attached to it. There are nummbers to the left and to the right of it.
The vertical line separates the "high-tide-times" on the left of
it, from the "low-tide-times" to the right. The numbers to the
left of the vertical line are the HOURS (no minutes are given) of
the high-tides. Similarly the numbers to the right are the hours
of the low-tides. The little horizontal lines which are attached
to the vertical line symbolise the actual levels of the events.
The longer protruding line refers to the first event, the shorter
to the second tide-event. The vertical line also shows the
"highest high-tide" and the "lowest high-tide", as well as the
"highest low-tide" and the "lowest low-tide" levels. So, the level
of the "lowest neap-low-tide" is reached if the little horizontal
line to the right side of the vertical line (low tides) is on the
bottom-most position.
