SUNCLOCK

Section: User Commands (1)
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NAME

sunclock - show illuminated portion of Earth  

SYNOPSIS

sunclock [ options ]  

DESCRIPTION

sunclock is an X11 application that displays a map of the Earth and indicates the illuminated portion of the globe by drawing sunlit areas dark on light, night areas as light on dark. It also displays the current date and time.  

OPTIONS

The program does not use the X Toolkit, and hence only those options explicitly enumerated below may be used. Neither are any resources used.
-version
Show program version and patch level, and then exit.
-display dispname
Give the name of the X server to contact.
-iconic
Start iconic. Usually you will want to specify this option.
-geometry +x+y
Specify the position of the window. Only the position is used; any size information given is ignored.
-icongeometry +x+y
Specify the position of the icon. Only the position is used; any size information given is ignored.
 

HOW IT WORKS

sunclock calculates the position of the Sun using the algorithm in chapter 18 of:

Astronomical Formulae for Calculators by Jean Meeus, Third Edition, Richmond: Willmann-Bell, 1985.

and Mercator projects the illuminated area onto map image. The Sun's position is calculated to better than one arc-second in accuracy.  

BUGS

The maps are not rescaled if you resize the open window or icon. (I don't want to have to store a vector database for the map.) The program contravenes section 4.1.9 of the ICCCM in that its icon window is a fixed size, and any WM_ICON_SIZE property of the root window is ignored.

The illuminated area shown is the area which would be sunlit if the Earth had no atmosphere. The actual illuminated area is larger because of atmospheric refraction and twilight.  

AUTHOR

John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; <john@cs.su.oz.AU>. Based on a Suntools program by John Walker, Autodesk, Inc.; <kelvin@acad.uu.NET>.


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
HOW IT WORKS
BUGS
AUTHOR

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Time: 20:43:53 GMT, June 11, 2022