The Moon Viewer 3.0 Windows Moon Background 1.0 Shareware The Best Moon Shareware Package Copright (C) 1996 By Lorenzo Pasqualis All rights reserved Moon Viewer Short Guide. This is just a short guide. The Moon Viewer is very easy to use and I'm not going to write a complete manual. I'm sure that you will find this short guide detailed enough to use Moon Viewer. Please, apologize for my english. You will probably find many english errors in this file. My first language is Italian. I'm sure that the quality of this software is more important and will satisfy you more than my english! Run Moon Viewer: To run the program just run MOON.EXE from the Command Prompt or from Windows. There aren't command line parameter. Notation: UTC = Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). LT = Local Time (Your time in your zone). Start screen: The start screen is different if you are a registered user or not. - If you are a shareware user (not registered) you have to read the LICENSE agreement that will be showed. You can scroll the window with PagUp/PagDown keys (or arrows). If you agree with the license just press Y (that mean.. YES, I AGREE!), and you will be jumped in the Main Screen. If you don't agree just press ESC to exit to DOS. You must agree to use this trial version of Moon Viewer. - If you are a registerd user, Moon Viewer will show you a window with written that you are registered, and with your name, address and all datas. If you press a key or if you wait 3 sec. the screen disappear and you go directly to the Main Screen. No boring license agreement to read!! :) Main screen: WOW! On the top, in the center of your monitor you can see the actual Moon!!! If you see just a dark circle it mean that you are in the New Moon phase. If you see the full Moon without shadow on it... of curse, you are in the full Moon phase! There are 4 windows showing many information. The first one, on the left, is the "Information window" where you can read everything about the Moon in the picture. Then there is a Status window where you can read the status of the program and the actual REAL date and time. The third window is the Menu', with all the commands available. The little window on the bottom of the screen is the "Last file written" window, where you can read the name of the last file exported. Just to remember if you have export something. Information Window: Julian Date: Is the Universal Time written in the Julian calendar, that is the number of days occuring from 1-1-4713 B.C. (year 4712 in the astronomical use). Is a standard date for astronomical calcolous. If you are interested just take a good encyclopedia and look for "Julian Date" or "Calendar" or "Date". Local Time: The local time of the Moon in the picture. Universal Time (UTC or GMT): The local time converted in Greenwich Mean Time. Please read README.TXT "installation" and "timezone.txt" for more information how to set up your environment. You should set the standard environment varabile TZ to be sure that the computation of the Moon is right. Age of the Moon: The age in Days, houres and minutes from the last New Moon. Moon phase: The percent of the Moon with light! (0%=NEW, 100%=FULL). Moon's distance: The distance of the Moon from the Earth expressed in Km. Sun's distance: The distance of the Sun from the Earth expressed in Km. Last New Moon, First Quarter, New Moon, Last Quarter, Next New Moon: The date and time of phases. Easter: The Easter date of the current year. This can be computer "only" after 1583 because before it wasn't clear how to define the Easter date. Last Blue Moon, Next Blue Moon: Date and time of the last and next Blue Moon. The Blue Moon is the second full Moon in the same month. Very rare!! Read bluemoon.txt for more information. Status Window: In the first two lines you can see the actual time and date. This is not always equal to the Local Time in the information window. The information window show information about the Moon that you see in the picture, Status window show the state of the program and computer. You can change the time/date of the Moon that you want to display, but you cannot change the time/date of your computer (..of curse you can from the DOS prompt...). You can also read, to the right of the time, about your current GMT difference setting. Check if is correct referring to the timediff.txt file. Animation: Can be ON or OFF. You can turn ON/OFF the animation with the [A] key. If the animation is ON the picture will be refreshed every X seconds. You can change the X value with [+]/[-] keys. In the Actual Moon Mode this is not very useful, but in the One Day Step is very interesting to see how the Moon change every day. Just read below and everything will be clearer. Delay: This is the number of seconds of delay between two subsequent refreshes of the Moon if you are in Animation ON mode. You can chage it with [+]/[-] keys. The delay can be from 0 sec (MAX speed) to 3600 sec. (MIN speed). Mode: ACTUAL MOON: You are in this mode when you start Moon Viewer or when you press the [M] key. In this mode you are always sure that the Moon on your screen is the actual Moon that you can see in your sky!!! CUSTOM: You are in Custom Mode if you have changed the Date/Time of the showed Moon using [D] or [T] keys. ONE DAY STEP: You are in this mode if you pressed the [S] key. In this mode every time that the Moon is refreshed the date is increased of one day. You can refresh the Moon manually with the [F] key or automatically with the Animation ON mode (key [A]). Picture: You can switch the Moon view with the [SPACE] bar: PHOTO: If you see the photographic picture of the Moon. DRAFT: If you see the schematic picture of the Moon. In the little box in the Status window there is a flag that show you if Moon Viewer is working. When there is the word "WORK" inside this box mean that Moon Viewer is working. Note that Moon Viewer don't accept commands when you see the word "WORK" in the box. Menu' Window: The Menu' window show all the possible commands. Animation related commands: [A] = Switch Animation ON and OFF. The default is ON [+] = Increment the delay of the animation (animation slower). [-] = Decrement the delay of the animation (animation faster). [F] = Force refresh. To manually force the computation of the Moon. Mode related commands: [M] = Switch to actual Moon mode. To show the actual moon. [S] = Switch to One Day Step. To show how the Moon change every day. [D] = Insert a new Date. This key allow you to specify a date for the computation of the Moon datas. A little help window will help you to insert a right date. IMPORTANT: * Note that the format is DAY-MONTH-YEAR, not MONTH-DAY-YEAR as normally used in US. * Also note that you must specify the FULL year. For example 5-1-1996 (5 Jenuary 1996) IS DIFFERENT from 5-1-96 (that is 5 Jenuary of year 96 ... about 1900 years ago !!!). * In the registered you can specify a date from 1-1-9999 B.C. to 31-12-9999 In the not registered version you can specify dates only from 1-1-1900 * If you want to specify a date B.C. you have to add "bc" after the date. For example 1 jenuary 234 B.C. must be written: 1-1-234 bc * The calendar before 1583 is reported to the actual calendar. I don't want to write a story of the calendar, so I do not explain what is happened to the calendar in 1583, you can find many information about that in any encyclopedia. [T] = Insert a new time. You must specify the time in 24h full format! So to specify 3:35 PM you must type 15:35:00 Note that the format is HH:MM:SS. To specify 1:10 AM you must type: 01:10:00 Always two digits for houres, two digits for minutes and two digits for seconds. You cannot type just 1:10:00 [L] = Switch to Local Time Mode. All times are displayed as local time (your time). This is the default. [U] = Switch to Universal Time Mode. All times are displayed as Universal Time. This don't affect the time in the Status window, that is always YOUR time. [C] = To enter in the calendar mode. Various commands: [SPACE] = Switch between Photo/Draft picture. [B] = Write the current Moon picture to a BMP file. If you save a BMP the name of the file will be written in the Last Written File window. [ESC] = Return to DOS. The Calendar Mode: If you enter in the calendar mode a new big window is opened on the top of the screen. This window show you the calendar of phases of the year showed in the information window. If you want to change the date of the calendar you have to use the [D] command of the main menu'. For example if you are interested in the calendar of the Moon of year 0 you can specify the date 1-1-0 and press [C] to enter in calendar mode. When you enter in calendar mode a new Export menu' window is opened and you can choose to export the calendar in BMP, HTML or TXT format. Note that the file name of these files is fixed and files are written in the Moon Viewer directory. If you export the calendar the name of the files will be written in the Last File Written window. Files names are generated in this format: MCXXXXAA.EXT Where: MC is fixed and mean "Moon Calendar". XXXX is the calendar year. AA is "bc" if the date is B.C. or nothing if is A.C. EXT is the extension (HTM, BMP or TXT). For example HTML calendar of the year 747 B.C. will be named MC747BC.HTM *END*