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The lunar eclipse of August 27–28, 2026 was awe inspiring for me. The moon changed colors, it jumped about the sky. the weather cooperated with a clear night sky. and I was able to conveniently view it with binoculars in my back yard.

I first wrote orbtimes almost twenty years ago. Back then there was a big need for personal information managers (PIMs). Having a calendar seemed like a useful way to organize my time, and writing my own seemed the thing to do. I had little awareness of how difficult such a task was, and how limited the prospects actually were. As I studied calendars, I got led to studying astronomy and astronomical calculations.

Back then I was a serious runner and bicyclist. And I used to browse bookstores for mathematics and physics books. That was where I found Peter Duffett-Smith’s book “Astronomy with your personal Computer”. Later I found other books on astronomical computing. This included Jean Meeus works.

And everytime there was a solar eclipse I got motivated to update my program, and to fix the bugs that cropped up. This eclipse was a lunar eclipse and was a new, delightful, and unexpected event.

So, I went to my free software orbtimes and went about calculating the event. I have updated it to compute moon tables.

./orbtimes -B12
location is latitude 36.000000 longitude -90.000000 daylight offset 1.000000
Sunset local day Monday 18:37.731439 October 5 2026
Sunrise local day Tuesday 6:59.224254 October 6 2026
Full Moon Table from 2026 10 (year month) for 12 months.
10: 2026 10 26 (ymd) 4: 1 (hm) -2 (local) 2461339.667689 (jd)
11: 2026 11 24 (ymd) 14:50 (hm) 8 (local) 2461369.118652 (jd)
12: 2026 12 24 (ymd) 1:29 (hm) -5 (local) 2461398.562099 (jd)
13: 2027 1 22 (ymd) 12:21 (hm) 6 (local) 2461428.014723 (jd)
14: 2027 2 20 (ymd) 23:23 (hm) 17 (local) 2461457.474498 (jd)
15: 2027 3 22 (ymd) 10:34 (hm) 4 (local) 2461486.940580 (jd)
16: 2027 4 20 (ymd) 22:14 (hm) 16 (local) 2461516.426392 (jd)
17: 2027 5 20 (ymd) 10:48 (hm) 4 (local) 2461545.950155 (jd)
18: 2027 6 19 (ymd) 0:41 (hm) -6 (local) 2461575.528574 (jd)
19: 2027 7 18 (ymd) 15:44 (hm) 9 (local) 2461605.156222 (jd)
20: 2027 8 17 (ymd) 7:31 (hm) 1 (local) 2461634.813211 (jd)
21: 2027 9 15 (ymd) 23: 6 (hm) 17 (local) 2461664.462745 (jd)
22: 2027 10 15 (ymd) 13:53 (hm) 7 (local) 2461694.078910 (jd)
New Moon Table from 2026 10 (year month) for 12 months.
10: 2026 10 10 (ymd) 16:12 (hm) 10 (local) 2461324.175131 (jd)
11: 2026 11 9 (ymd) 7:23 (hm) 1 (local) 2461353.808233 (jd)
12: 2026 12 9 (ymd) 1: 3 (hm) -5 (local) 2461383.544032 (jd)
13: 2027 1 7 (ymd) 20:26 (hm) 14 (local) 2461413.351784 (jd)
14: 2027 2 6 (ymd) 15:59 (hm) 9 (local) 2461443.166015 (jd)
15: 2027 3 8 (ymd) 9:36 (hm) 3 (local) 2461472.900531 (jd)
16: 2027 4 6 (ymd) 23:59 (hm) 17 (local) 2461502.499964 (jd)
17: 2027 5 6 (ymd) 11: 2 (hm) 5 (local) 2461531.959797 (jd)
18: 2027 6 4 (ymd) 19:42 (hm) 13 (local) 2461561.320847 (jd)
19: 2027 7 4 (ymd) 3: 1 (hm) -3 (local) 2461590.626361 (jd)
20: 2027 8 2 (ymd) 10: 8 (hm) 4 (local) 2461619.922907 (jd)
21: 2027 8 31 (ymd) 17:46 (hm) 11 (local) 2461649.240532 (jd)
22: 2027 9 30 (ymd) 2:42 (hm) -4 (local) 2461678.612634 (jd)

Solar eclipses must occur during new moons. Lunar eclipses during full moons. These calculations are my own. There is no warranty as to accuracy. If you find an error, please let me know!

add to /etc/sources.list.d/

deb [ arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nickstrauss.gpg ] http://apt.nick-strauss.com/apt/debian stable main

and place a binary public key nickstrauss.gpg in the directory /etc/apt/keyrings

from the ascii armored key nickstrauss.asc

—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

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twcRnPNo7JxfWXyIBMflmUAgcZA1kKiWF1Rs0sVWT8Q/GxY1SvwxrSzF14bpN0oH
4MaXNgicb4AfjU9qOcFzW+dPBpvz1FLgRbAer4ITbP+NIguMe/SqQw8Y/P0CVOrx
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—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

orbtimes –help
orbtimes –location –timezone –daylight
–query returns 1 if query is true, 0 otherwise
–selftest will run exhaustive test cases
–verbose will print diagnostic information

Examples:
orbtimes --location "36.048202N 114.950131W 0ft" --timezone -8.0  --daylight 1 
Called with no (or partial) arguments, and it will guess at timezone, location, and daylight savings.
orbtimes --location="48.22N 11.54E 0ft" -v
Called with --moon and/or other orbs.
orbtimes --moon --location="36.048621N 114.951226W" -v
Called with a query
orbtimes --moon --query "sunset>moonrise"
Called on a particular date and time
orbtimes -J 2457957.0 -vv
Called with two stars, solve for location with synthetic sightings
--star Vega --star Arcturus --location="36N90W"
Called with two stars, solve for location with two sightings
--star Vega --star Arcturus --sighting 58.725774 --sighting 61.740039
TBD solve for time and date with two sightings

All Options:
--location (-l) Specify location (latitude, longitude, elevation) e.g. "48.22N 11.54E 0ft"
--query (-q) Specify a query e.g. "sunrise<sunset"
--date (-D) Specify the date yyy-mm-day
--ztime (-Z) Specify the Zulu (UT) time. Use in conjunction with date. e.g. "23:6.1"
--datejd (-J) Specify the Julian day
--timezone (-t) Specify the timezone
--daylight (-d) Specify the daylight savings offset
--twilight_angle (-e) Specify a twilight angle (radians)
--solar_eclipse (-E) Run solar eclipse calculation for probability and time
--selftest (-s) Run self test mode
--verbose (-v) Print more information
--ascii_art (-A) Display option
--map (-m) Specify map (spacechart catalog)
--moon (-M) Display lunar (i.e. Moon) info
--moondays (-N) Display lunar new and full info
--mercury --venus --mars --jupiter --saturn --uranus --neptune (--orbs) Display each planets info (or all) 
--star (-9) Display star celestial (RA.DEC) and topographic (EL.AZ) info for date, time, location and epoch. 
  solve for location given two stars circle of equal position intersect.
  "An analytical solution of the Two Star Sight Problem of Celestial Navigation." Van Allen 1981.
  if no sightings, then guess elevation (EL) angles.
--sighting (-C) Set sighting elevation angle (EL) for respective star. 
--twilight (-T) Display twilight info [0..3] civil,nautical,astronomical,general

$ orbtimes –solar_eclipse
SOLAR_ECLIPSE CALCULATE -E
location is latitude 36.000000 longitude -90.000000 daylight offset 1.000000
Sunset local day Tuesday 19:50.505922 August 11 2026
Sunrise local day Wednesday 6:16.183105 August 12 2026
Check: Solar eclipse possible. MUST be at new moon 46245.468565 == 46245.234619 (12.000000 8.000000 2026.000000)
argument latitude 2.990440 event day 46245.000000 event fraction 0.234619
Check: calculating solar eclipse on date 2026 8 12 and location -90.000000 36.000000
moon_lat 0.151152
eclipse probability 1.000000 at UT time 18.017936

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

Julian Day Number JD began at 12:00 PM (noon) Universal Time on January 1, 4713 BC. the variable JD is an extended precision floating point number, with the fractional part determining fractions of a day with respect to Universal Time (UT).

// Sunrise Friday   6:2.257904 July 25 2025 (local day)  Julian 2460881.959901 (hours UT=11.037632 )        
// location is latitude 36.000000 longitude -90.000000 daylight offset 1.000000       
    dj = JulianDays(25, 7, 2025);                                                                               
    jd = trueJulianDays(dj);                                                                                    
    icheck = (fabs(jd-2460881.959901)<1.0);                                                                     
                          

/* in our system we work with a modified
julianDay from 1900
*/
extended trueJulianDays(extended jd)
{
return jd + 2415020;
}

A song I heard many times. A song I sung many times. A song I play on the guitar. I believe the song references John 16:33.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

He has overcome the world, and so we can too.

My father was a scientist. I asked him, “What’s science?” He said that scientists ask questions, and make experiments to get answers. The question is called a hypothesis. Of course you don’t need to make a controlled experiment, many answers can be drawn from careful observation. This is called the scientific method.

Another method is called the Socratic method. In this, you are supposed to engage others in a dialog with questions and answers.

Both of these methods could be about uncovering truth.

Then, there is the method of blog, or diaries. One keeps a daily record, it could be weekly, or randomly of one’s Fear, feelings, fantasies, Love, observations. To what end? For what purpose?

I feel a need to search, to find answers. I feel a need to fill that hole in my life. I feel a need to communicate, to share, to love. I feel a need to be honest with myself.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”