Help with Tonight's Sky
| Tonight's Sky provides a snapshot of what's happening in the sky. It provides you with accessible information on upcoming sky events, lunar phases, and rise and set times for the Sun, Moon, and planets. |
Change location To change this, click Change Location. This will bring up a form where you can enter your city name (or, for the U.S., just a ZIP code), state, province, or country. Once you enter the information, click Search, select the correct location from the list, and click OK. The display will now show rise and set events in your local time. If your web browser is set to allow cookies, Tonight's Sky will remember your city. You can also use this feature to obtain information from other locations around the world. |
Explore the tabs Sun & Moon. Click this tab to show information about the Sun and Moon for the selected location: sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, as well as the Moon's current phase and the percentage of the Moon's disk illuminated by the Sun. In addition, the Moon image reflects the Moon's current appearance. |
| Tonight's Sky lists the Moon's phases, in order of progression, as New, Waxing crescent, First Quarter, Waxing gibbous, Full, Waning gibbous, Last Quarter, and Waning crescent. The tool tracks the Moon's phase throughout the night, so the image, the disk percentage, and phase shown will change, too. |
.jpg&w=207) From higher latitudes, where the summer Sun remains above the horizon much of the night, Tonight's Sky simply indicates whether or nor a planet is visible. |
 From higher latitudes, where the summer Sun remains above the horizon much of the night, Tonight's Sky simply indicates whether a planet is visible. |
| Tech talk Tonight's Sky is a small program — called an applet — written in the Java language from Sun Microsystems. When you visit Astronomy.com, your web browser downloads the applet and executes it. For Tonight's Sky to function, you'll need the Java Runtime Environment version 1.3 or higher, and you'll need to set your web browser to enable Java content. |
