sunclock
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>.