Aw, man, I got this… this… coding problem. I keep finding myself writing things that only I would have a use for. So on my iPad, I found this App called “Emerald Observatory”, and I was so, so impressed. First, it’s pretty. Really pretty. Second, it’s full of astronomical data, useful stuff. And I thought to myself, wow… I really like some of this.
Then (oh, no…) I began to think about what parts of it I would like to use, that is, have directly available to me. So I wrote those nice folks, complementing them sincerely on what a nice App they had come up with (check it out, you won’t regret it), and suggesting they write what I had in mind, because actually, they sort of had the data in the app already, it was just a matter of organizing it differently. I got a nice reply, thanking me for the suggestion, but allowing as to how they had a lot to do, and so it would be “on their list.”
Well…
Not being the most patient person in the world, and well aware that “later” often means never, no matter how well intended when handed over, by morning I had This:
Basically, it tells you where all the planets are in the sky, how well you can expect to see… even if there’s an eclipse going on. In the process, I got to cobble up some simple dials of various kinds, which was sorta fun. Ok, not really, but now that they’re done, they’re fun. 
So if there are any folks in the Glasgow area that are looking for current astronomical data for the planets… here it is. If you’re any distance from Glasgow (and almost everyone is), these are wrong values for you. Sorry.
I wrote it in Python.
![fyngyrz posted a photo: The map location here shows where I was when I took the photo, rather than the photo itself. I was looking west (obviously) from the north end of the church parking lot which itself is north of Bonnie Street, and south of Airport Road. I jockeyed around until I had the sun completely behind the radar housing, and then shot a few shots at different exposures, hoping that the 50D's dynamic range would catch the gradation in the sky; it did ok, but I still wish we had another couple of high quality bits of dynamic range. Maybe the next camera generation will go there. Canon EOS 50D [modified IR response in Hα range], hooded Sigma EF-S 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM prime [ø62mm] w/B&W 62mm IR/UV cut filter #65-014691; RAW to JPEG conversion and editing in Aperture 3.](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4912161604_6cd46bace2_m.jpg "fyngyrz posted a photo: The map location here shows where I was when I took the photo, rather than the photo itself. I was looking west (obviously) from the north end of the church parking lot which itself is north of Bonnie Street, and south of Airport Road. I jockeyed around until I had the sun completely behind the radar housing, and then shot a few shots at different exposures, hoping that the 50D's dynamic range would catch the gradation in the sky; it did ok, but I still wish we had another couple of high quality bits of dynamic range. Maybe the next camera generation will go there. Canon EOS 50D [modified IR response in Hα range], hooded Sigma EF-S 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM prime [ø62mm] w/B&W 62mm IR/UV cut filter #65-014691; RAW to JPEG conversion and editing in Aperture 3.")
