Moon Phase: How it works
Moon Phase provides a computer-generated approximation of what the moon currently looks like. While less impressive than the real thing, it doesn't require waiting for a cloudless night.It is based on a composite image of the moon made up of data from various satellites. Every hour, this image is mapped onto a sphere and shaded by xplanet according to the current positions of the earth and moon, then post-processed by ImageMagick to remove some visible artifacts.
When the page is viewed, perl's Astro::MoonPhase generates data about the moon's current status, such as percent illuminated and the times of nearby full and new moons. This is formatted in HTML and sent to your browser along with the most recently generated image.
Usage Guidelines
If you have a use for the die.net Moon Phase images, contact me with details and we'll discuss options. I don't charge for the use of the images, but I do want to make sure you minimize your use of my bandwidth and provide a link back to the die.net Moon Phase page wherever the image is used.
