Luna-tic!

Luna-tic! is yet another app to provide Sun and Moon rise and set times, as well as providing the current lunar cycle.

Key Features

Track the Rise and Set times of the Moon for today
Track the Rise and Set times of the Sun for today
Display the current Phase of the Moon visually
Display the common name of the Moon’s current phase
Report the date of the next Full and New Moon events
Report the estimated time of day for the next Full and New Moon events
Run as an Application with a Widget view (on supported devices)

This application is built using the open source SolarSystem library from IoannisNasios (see https://github.com/IoannisNasios/solarsystem/tree/master)

Accuracy

All of the Sun and Moon calculations are completely handled internally. The Sun Rise and Sun Set data agrees closely with the native Garmin Connect IQ sunriseset functions (it’s actually a bit more accurate as compared to online professional astronomy sites, but both provide values within 1 minute of each other.)

The floating-point math capabilities of Garmin Connect IQ isn’t spectacular, so the best case scenario only provides accuracy within a couple minutes real time. Also, calculation of lunar events is highly complex, and the application performs only a limited level of approximation for lunar eccentricity. Lunar Rise and Set times are expected to be reasonably accurate but can vary by +/- 15-20 minutes from astronomical observatory grade predictions. The exact Full and New moon dates are exceptionally complex, and this model does not rigorously account for the entire set of cyclical variations. New and Full Moon dates and times are expected to be accurate withing +/- 8 hours or so.

The visually displayed phase of the moon is fairly accurate and you should notice little difference between the image displayed and the actual appearance of the moon in the sky.

Usage

Supported Garmin devices running at least Connect IQ 4.0.0 or higher will be able to add the application to the Widget list as a Glance view. The Glance View displays the current Rise and Set times for the moon, the common name of the current Phase of the moon, and a visual image of the of the moon’s phase that should be relatively easy to see even in Glance mode.

Selecting the App from the Glance view, or launching the App from the Applications list will open the full application. There are 4 pages of data available to be viewed in the app.

Page 1 displays the current date, rise and set times for the moon today, the name of the moon’s phase, and a large graphical representation of the moon in its current phase
Page 2 displays the information about the next Full moon, including date, rise and set times, and an image of the Full moon.
Page 3 displays the information about the next New moon, including date, rise and set times, and an image of the New moon.
Page 4 displays the rise and set times of the Sun for today.

Note that Luna-tic is dependent on your current Location to perform its mathematical magic. If the app displays ‘Waiting for GPS’ be sure to head outside for a minute to allow the GPS location to be determined. Once you have established a location one time, the app caches the most recent GPS coordinates and will use those as a quick reference when launching the app in the future. The app updates location information (if GPS is available) every 30 seconds while running, so just use the app outside once in a while if you’ve travelled an extended distance between usage.

Screens