Moon phase calculation
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The illuminated fraction of the moon can be calculated with moonAngle() in the oce package, as illustrated graphically and in R code below.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | library(oce)
par(mar=c(3, 3, 1, 1), mgp=c(2, 0.7, 0)) # tighten margins
t <- as.POSIXct("2013-12-1", tz="UTC") + seq(0, 28*24*3600, 3600)
f <- moonAngle(t=t, longitude=-63.6,
latitude=44.65)$illuminatedFraction
plot(t, f, type="l", xlab="Day of 2013", ylab="Moon fraction")
grid()
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For interest, add full-moon time as indicated in an almanac.
1 2 3 | full <- as.POSIXct("2013-12-17 05:29:00", tz="AST")
abline(v=full)
mtext("full", at=full, side=3)
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Exercises (a) Try this for other locations. (b) Detect full moon by using uniroot() on the rate of change of illumination.
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