In working with John Carmichael on
the layout of the dial markers at Kitt Peak we decided there was a
need for a list of times for the 5-minute and special markers (about
190 of them). The list would show the marker time for the dial
face and the standard time clock reading when the shadow would appear
at that marker. This second value would be Standard Time
plus/minus the EOT for that date/time (what should you call it, it is
not standard time, local mean time or local apparent time). The
EOT would change a few seconds over the course of the day so each
time should be computed individually. That sounded like too
much work and too much probability of error, so I wrote an
application that computes the values. You simply input year,
month, date, starting time in hours and minutes, ending time in hours
and minutes, increments (we used 5 minutes), the time zone, and
whether daylight savings is in effect. I also entered a list of
special events (sunrise/sunset for special days, high noon and, in
our case, style shift times). And I let the computer do the
work. Viola! We had the list without the pain! I e-mailed a pdf
file to John who printed it on a plotter so we had a poster-size
printout. It turned out to be very professional looking and a
great help.
Some of you may wind up in a
similar situation. If anyone would like to use my application,
I would be glad to share it for free. It is a PostScript file,
which is a text file. All you do is edit it with any text
editor and open it with a PostScript viewer. You can then print
it or convert it to a pdf file. Very simple.
The most popular PostScript viewer
is GhostScript. It runs on any platform = Microsoft windows,
OS2, MacOS, Unix, Linux or VMS. GhostScript by itself requires
you to type in long Unix-like command lines on the keyboard, so also
get GSView so you have a user-friendly window/mouse interface with
your computer. These are free from the University of Wisconsin
at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
Robert Hough
ShadowMaster
32.37N 111.13W
In working with John Carmichael on the layout of the dial markers at Kitt Peak we decided there was a need for a list of times for the 5-minute and special markers (about 190 of them). The list would show the marker time for the dial face and the standard time clock reading when the shadow would appear at that marker. This second value would be Standard Time plus/minus the EOT for that date/time (what should you call it, it is not standard time, local mean time or local apparent time). The EOT would change a few seconds over the course of the day so each time should be computed individually. That sounded like too much work and too much probability of error, so I wrote an application that computes the values. You simply input year, month, date, starting time in hours and minutes, ending time in hours and minutes, increments (we used 5 minutes), the time zone, and whether daylight savings is in effect. I also entered a list of special events (sunrise/sunset for special days, high noon and, in our case, style shift times). And I let the computer do the work. Viola! We had the list without the pain! I e-mailed a pdf file to John who printed it on a plotter so we had a poster-size printout. It turned out to be very professional looking and a great help.
Some of you may wind up in a similar situation. If anyone would like to use my application, I would be glad to share it for free. It is a PostScript file, which is a text file. All you do is edit it with any text editor and open it with a PostScript viewer. You can then print it or convert it to a pdf file. Very simple.
The most popular PostScript viewer is GhostScript. It runs on any platform = Microsoft windows, OS2, MacOS, Unix, Linux or VMS. GhostScript by itself requires you to type in long Unix-like command lines on the keyboard, so also get GSView so you have a user-friendly window/mouse interface with your computer. These are free from the University of Wisconsin at <http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/>http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
Robert Hough
ShadowMaster
32.37N 111.13W
