Having done the plot with python+matplotlib, thought I would have a go reproducing it in R, using only the builtin “plot”. So, just to recap – this is a plot of the sun times (rise/set,twilight and blinding) as generated by the great python library pyephem. The R code reads in a csv file as output from a modified version of the python code used in my original post.

For completeness, the csv generation code is below:

import ephem
import datetime, math
import pylab
 
place = ephem.city('Melbourne')
 
start_date = datetime.datetime(2009,12,1,12)
end_date = datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 31,12)
 
base_offset = '0'
twilight_offset = '-6:00:0.0' # "twilight" = centre of the sun is -6deg ideal horizon
eyeline_offset = '15:34:0.0' # arbitrary +15deg
 
sun = ephem.Sun(place)
 
dates = []
sunrise = []
sunset = []
firstlight = []
lastlight = []
firsteyel = []
lasteyel = []

numdays = (end_date - start_date).days
dates = [start_date + datetime.timedelta(days=i) for i in xrange(numdays+1)] 
dates.sort()

def dt2m(dt):
    return (dt.hour*60) + dt.minute

def m2hm(x):
    h = int(x/60)
    m = int(x%60)
    return '%(h)02d%(m)02d' % {'h':h,'m':m}

sunrise = map(lambda x:dt2m(ephem.localtime(place.next_rising(sun,start=x))),dates)
sunset = map(lambda x:dt2m(ephem.localtime(place.next_setting(sun,start=x))),dates)

place.horizon = twilight_offset
firstlight = map(lambda x:dt2m(ephem.localtime(place.next_rising(sun,start=x))),dates)
lastlight = map(lambda x:dt2m(ephem.localtime(place.next_setting(sun,start=x))),dates)

place.horizon = eyeline_offset
firsteyel = map(lambda x:dt2m(ephem.localtime(place.next_rising(sun,start=x))),dates)
lasteyel = map(lambda x:dt2m(ephem.localtime(place.next_setting(sun,start=x))),dates)

writer = open("suntimes.csv", "w")
writer.write("date,firstlight,sunrise,firsteyel,lasteyel,sunset,lastlight\n")
for n in xrange(numdays):
 writer.write(str(dates[n]) +","+  (m2hm(firstlight[n]))+"," \
 + m2hm(sunrise[n])+"," + m2hm(firsteyel[n])+"," + m2hm(lasteyel[n])+"," \
 + m2hm(sunset[n])+"," + m2hm(lastlight[n])+"\n")
writer.close()
 
 

I chose to leave the format of the times, as they resemble the format of the Geoscience Australia times.

This is how the csv file looks:

date,firstlight,sunrise,firsteyel,lasteyel,sunset,lastlight
2009-12-01 00:00:00,0518,0551,0719,1858,2026,2059
2009-12-02 00:00:00,0518,0551,0719,1859,2027,2100
2009-12-03 00:00:00,0518,0551,0719,1859,2028,2101
2009-12-04 00:00:00,0518,0551,0719,1900,2029,2102
2009-12-05 00:00:00,0518,0550,0719,1901,2030,2103

And here’s the resulting graph:


Here’s the R code:

suntimes <- read.csv("suntimes.csv")
 
suntimes$date <- sub(' 00:00:00$', '', suntimes$date) #strip off trailing 0
suntimes$date <- as.Date(suntimes$date,"%Y-%m-%d") # make real date so we can axis.date
suntimes$firstlight <- sub('^([[:digit:]]{3})$', '0\\1', suntimes$firstlight) #pad 0
suntimes$sunrise <- sub('^([[:digit:]]{3})$', '0\\1', suntimes$sunrise)
suntimes$firsteyel <- sub('^([[:digit:]]{3})$', '0\\1', suntimes$firsteyel)
suntimes$lasteyel <- sub('^([[:digit:]]{3})$', '0\\1', suntimes$lasteyel)
suntimes$sunset <- sub('^([[:digit:]]{3})$', '0\\1', suntimes$sunset)
suntimes$lastlight <- sub('^([[:digit:]]{3})$', '0\\1', suntimes$lastlight)
  
#calc as minutes from midnight
suntimes$firstlighttimes <-  as.integer(substr(suntimes$firstlight,1,2))*60 + as.integer(substr(suntimes$firstlight,3,4))
suntimes$sunrisetimes <-  as.integer(substr(suntimes$sunrise,1,2))*60 + as.integer(substr(suntimes$sunrise,3,4))
suntimes$firsteyeltimes <-  as.integer(substr(suntimes$firsteyel,1,2))*60 + as.integer(substr(suntimes$firsteyel,3,4))
suntimes$lasteyeltimes <-  as.integer(substr(suntimes$lasteyel,1,2))*60 + as.integer(substr(suntimes$lasteyel,3,4))
suntimes$sunsettimes <-  as.integer(substr(suntimes$sunset,1,2))*60 + as.integer(substr(suntimes$sunset,3,4))
suntimes$lastlighttimes <-  as.integer(substr(suntimes$lastlight,1,2))*60 + as.integer(substr(suntimes$lastlight,3,4))
 
plot(suntimes$date,suntimes$firstlighttimes,type="l", lwd=1,col='blue',ylim=c(240,1330), axes= F, xlab= "Dates", ylab= "Time")
# make grid first, then overlay points
abline(h=(seq(from=240,to=1330, by=20)), lwd =0.1, lty="dotted", col='#fafafa')
abline(h=(seq(from=240,to=1330, by=60)), lwd =0.1, lty="dotted", col='#fceae4')
abline(v=(seq(from=min(suntimes$date),to=max(suntimes$date),"month")), lwd =0.1, lty="dotted", col='#fceae4')

points(suntimes$date,suntimes$firstlighttimes,type='l', lwd=1,col='blue')
#points(suntimes$date,suntimes$sunrisetimes,type='p',pch=20, cex = 0.75, lwd=0.5,col='#FF0000')
points(suntimes$date,suntimes$sunrisetimes,type='l', lwd=2,col='#FF0000')
points(suntimes$date,suntimes$firsteyeltimes,type='l', lwd=1,col='orange')
points(suntimes$date,suntimes$lasteyeltimes,type='l', lwd=1,col='orange')
#points(suntimes$date,suntimes$sunsettimes,type='p',pch=20, cex = 0.75, lwd=0.75, col='#FF0000')
points(suntimes$date,suntimes$sunsettimes,type='l', lwd=2, col='#FF0000')
points(suntimes$date,suntimes$lastlighttimes,type='l', lwd=1,col='blue')
 
#customise X Axis
axis.Date(side=1, at=seq(from=min(suntimes$date),to=max(suntimes$date),"days"),col.ticks='gray', format="%b", labels="")
axis.Date(side=1, at=seq(from=min(suntimes$date),to=max(suntimes$date),"month"),  col.ticks='red', format="%b\n%Y" )
 
#customise Y Axis
yaxisMajorTicks.hours <- seq(from=240,to=1330, by=60) # whole hours from 4am to 10pm
yaxisMajorTicks.hournames <- as.character(yaxisMajorTicks.hours/60) #eg 240/60=4am
yaxisMajorTicks.hournames <- sub('^(.+)$', '\\1:00', yaxisMajorTicks.hournames) #append ":00"
 
yaxisMinorTicks.tens <- seq(from=240,to=1330, by=10)
yaxisMinorTicks.tensnames <- as.character(yaxisMinorTicks.tens)
yaxisMinorTicks.tensnames <- sub('^(.+)$', "", yaxisMinorTicks.tensnames)
# draw major over minor ticks
axis(side=2, at=yaxisMinorTicks.tens, col.ticks='gray',labels=yaxisMinorTicks.tensnames)
axis(side=2, at=yaxisMajorTicks.hours, col.ticks='red',labels=yaxisMajorTicks.hournames, las=2)
box()
#legend  max(yaxisMajorTicks.hours),c(1,2,1,2,1)pch=c(NA,20,NA,20,NA)
legend("right","center", c("firstlight","sunrise","in eyes","sunset","lastlight"), cex=0.75, 
   col=c("blue","red","orange","red","blue"), lty=1, lwd=2, bty="o", bg='#ffffff');