Must-have data — at least for me.
It may sound strange to folks who live in the world of alarm clocks and wrist watches, but my life’s calendar is managed by the sun. I wake early — before sunrise this time of year — and I sometimes can’t do things until after the sun has come up. As a pilot, I also need to know when the sun will rise and set so I can schedule sunrise and sunset flights, night flights, and photo flights, all of which depend on the sun for timing.
Each year, I export the daily sunrise and sunset information from TimePalette, a shareware application that provides various almanac information, into a FileMaker Pro database I created, which turns the exported data into real dates and times. I then export the Sunrise and Sunset info as separate FileMaker Pro files. I import those into iCal Filter, which enables me to export them back out as iCal .ics files. I open those file to import the information into iCal, thus displaying sunrise and sunset times on my iCal calendar.
Although it seems like a lot of work, I only do it once a year and then I’m set for the entire year.
I just ran through this exercise for 2007. You can download the resulting Sunrise.ics and Sunset.ics files and import them into your iCal calendar. Of course the sunrise and sunset times are customized for Wickenburg, AZ (not far from Phoenix), so if you live more than 100 miles away, the times will be off by more than a few minutes.
If you’re interested in the .ics files for your location, I could probably be charmed into whipping up the files for you in exchange for one of the items on my Amazon.com wish list. (I really like surprises.) I might even throw in the moonrise/moonset times; I’m working on adding them, too.
Unfortunately it doesn’t create iCal files, but the http://timeanddate.com/ website is very interesting and useful. It provides a heap of information related to dates and times, customisable in many ways.
Here’s the info for Phoenix, for example: http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=197
It’s worth exploring.
There are actually quite a few Web sites with that info. For example, the U.S. Naval Observatory has one, too: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html
TimePalette is the program I use to get the data. It’s incredibly detailed, with all kinds of time-related information for specific places on earth. It really came in handy when a photographer wanted sunrise and sunset photo flights over Lake Powell, which is quite a distance from here. It has a huge built-in database, but you can also enter lat/lon info to create your own locations. My Sunrise/Sunset info is for Wickenburg Airport, which is about 3 miles from my house. But if I wanted to get really geeky about it, I could enter the exact lat/lon for my house and have it calculate the information for that location.
I like having the data in iCal where each sunrise and sunset is an actual event. No need to access the Internet and it’s right in my calendar program, which is usually open when I make appointments for flying. Because I use .Mac to synchronize iCal on all my Macs, the info’s available on all my computers.
Thanks for the cool info! Just what I was looking for.
Hi Maria,
As a photographer and fellow Mac user I am very interested in Sunrise/ Sunset data in iCal. However at the time of this writing (december 2008) it seems your workflow with Seedcode is no longer available?
How could I get this going in this day and time?
I’t be great if you could hand me some pointers…
Albert
Albert,
I just ran through this exercise again for 2009 using a FileMaker Pro file called CCiCalFilter, which I tracked down last year. It still works fine with FileMaker Pro 8 (the version I’m still using). This year, I modified both FileMaker Pro files to speed up and automate the process, as well as add moonrise and moonset dates/times. I can now get a whole year’s worth of data imported into iCal in about 10 minutes.
Each year I improve my solution. Next year, I’m likely to combine both database files into one. The goal is to be able to create the 12 raw data files (one for each month) and use a single FileMaker Pro command in a single file to spit out all four (sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset) files with one script.
Hi Maria,
Best wishes for the new year and thanks for your comment. Unfortunately what I meant in my last coment was that exactly this CCiCalFilter is no longer available from Seedcode. That’s why I can’t recreate your steps…
Would there be an alternative way to do this that you know of?
Albert
No, I don’t know of any other way. I might put together a solution for this; I’ve already made some major changes to the CCiCalFilter file. Until then, there’s a chance I’ll be offering the custom ICS files to those who request them; you might want to check in on my blog, An Ecelctic Mind, for updates on this. I’m still undecided.