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Form for lunar observations around Skerries

The aim of this form is to collect important information when doing naked eye observations on the visibility of the moon's form during rise and set times. This information will hopefully be usefully to determine if theoretical formula's or rules of thumb can be developed from these observations. So your help is very important!

If wanted I can make a dedicated web-page for your own observation (with some fields already fill-in, diminishing the amount of time to fill-in the form everytime. Let me know.
Observation done from Skerries.

One important point: If the observation is done to verify if a neolithic building is aligned to set/rise/reappearing moon at a location, it could be handy for collecting good information to do the observation close to this neolithic location, but at different location/standpoint to be able to start/end the observations at an as low as possible apparent horizon altitude. This gives more information about the whole track of visibility of the moon. Please record also the visibility of the moon at the apparent altitude of the horizon at the neolithic site.

Fill in the fields as clear as possible (even is no information, just tell that with the text NA). The following abbreviations can be used:

xx
NA
0
non
very far

Field in dark red are very important to input. Bold values are mandatory

e-mail (mandatory):

person's age:

Information on the site:

name of site: country:
height above sea level: [m]
latitude (mandatory): [dd:mm:ss N/S]
longitude (mandatory): [dd:mm:ss E/W]
distance to the sea in the direction of the moon sighting: [km].

Light polution due to (remote) city (Garstang [1986]):

distance to the city center: [km], angle between moon sighting and location city center: [ddd], city size: [number of people], average diameter of city: [km], average height above sea level: [m] and .

Information on date/time and tools:

date of the observation (mandatory): (dd-mm-yyyy)
time zone: (UTC=GMT)

local time source (an accuracy of upto 10 sec should be oke for our purpose);

GPS (remember a GPS can be one or two seconds off due to slow displaying [GARMIN e.g. every sec], but check also your dealer. Also have your GPS for at least 13 min. switched on and acquires data, to be sure it picked up the UTC time adjustments)
a radio synchronized clock,
or NTP (e.g. Tardis)

method used to determine apparent altitude: (see also here), if using ephemeris/computer program/tables, provide name:
method used to determine azimuth: (see also here), if using ephemeris/computer program/tables, provide name:

Observations:

the apparent altitude of the horizon in direction of the moon sighting: [dd.dd]
lunar illumination: [%],
local time when the full lunar form is visible, so when was the crescent/gibbous/quarter/full form fully visible:[hh:mm:ss] at apparent altitude of of moon: [dd.dd].
name of lowest visible star/planet which is the closest to the local horizon (as near to the azimuth of the moon as possible):

local time of the first/last/reappear glimpse of the moon:

[hh:mm:ss]

moon vanished due to:
azimuth of center of moon: [ddd.dd]
with center of sun at (apparent) altitude [dd.dd] and azimuth [ddd.dd].

Weather conditions:

For possible available weather conditions see here or here or here
For Skerries: For moon rises: M2 data buoy and for moon sets: Dublin Airport or:

**All pictures from www.wunderground.com**

air temperature: [°C]
relative humidity: [%]
air pressure: [hPa] (same as [mBar])
visibility range: [km]

The horizontal distance at which a large dark object (mountain, etc.) can just be seen against the horizon sky in daylight.

weather conditions: like clouds, fog, mist, haze, dust, pollution, etc:

other important parameters (please make them known, so that they can be incorporated in the evaluation):

if picture available, please download in the file area of the archaeocosmology group or e-mail it to me. The name of the file is: time picture taken [hh:mm:ss]

if an observation has been done, but concluded it was not worth, please still state why it was not worth. So make it as explicit as possible why it could not be done (e.g. rain):

Press to send the form (by pressing this send button you agree that your information can be used for the lunar standstill research), or press to remove the things you filled in.

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Major content related changes: March 14, 2003