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https://github.com/bhugh/ThePlanets

Garmin IQ app to calculate position of sun, moon, & planets
https://github.com/bhugh/ThePlanets

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Garmin IQ app to calculate position of sun, moon, & planets

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README 

        
A planetarium on your Garmin smart watch - shows positions of sun & planets in the sky, and a moving top-down views of the solar system from close, medium, and wide views.  Includes several of the largest asteroids & dwarf planets.  



It's a planetarium & naked-eye/binocular astronomy viewing guide on your wrist: What is up tonight or right now? at a glance.



Sunrise, sunset, moon phase, season - solstice, equinox - as seen from your location today and tonight, all viewable at a glance.  

Or dive deeper into planetary, dwarf planet, & asteroid motion in the Solar System in the years & decades ahead and past.



Watch tonight's sky, or the outer Solar System over the next 4000 years, unfold in beautiful animations and graphics.



The planetary motion model is based on algorithms from the sophisticated VSOP model of planetary motion for very good accuracy for visual and general observation purposes for hundreds and thousands of years into the past and future.  You can view solar system, planet, and dwarf planet, positions with reasonable, though not perfect, accuracy through tens of thousands of years into the future or past.



**USAGE AND TIPS**

*Planet abbreviations:*

 * Sun

 * Me Mercury

 * Ve Venus

 * Ea Earth

 * Mo Moon

 * Ma Mars

 * Ju Jupiter

 * Sa Saturn     

 * Ur Uranus 

 * Ne Neptune     

 * Pl Pluto      

 * Er Eris (dwarf planet) 

 * Ha Haumea (dwarf planet) 

 * Ma Makemake (dwarf planet) 

 * Go Gonggong (dwarf planet) 

 * Qu Quaoar (ringed dwarf planet) 

 * Ce Ceres (dwarf planet/asteroid) 

 * Ch Chiron (ringed dwarf planet)



This encompasses all of the Solar System planets and most of the larger dwarf planets.



_Tips About Screens & General Usage_

 * TIP: Top-bottom of Large Circle are Solar Noon Midnight (marks). 



 * TIP: Horizontal moving marks are the HORIZON - anything above them is visible in the sky. Moving upper mark is the MERIDIAN, highest point of the ecliptic at your location right now. 



 * TIP: The Large Circle represents the ECLIPTIC, the apparent path of the Sun & Planets across the sky.



 * TIP: Planet positions are accurate to 1.2 deg for the period 2000BC to 6000 AD.



_App Usage Tips - What you need to know to make it work_

 * APP TIPS: UP/DOWN or SWIPE Moves time forward/ back on the 1st screen. Otherwise, speeds or slows time. 



 * SELECT or TAP starts time if stopped,  otherwise, moves to next mode. BACK stops time if started, otherwise goes BACK one mode OR exits from the 1st screen 



 * TIP: The Solar System Orrery can run forward or back THOUSANDS of years. Try speeding up time to 10yrs then watch... 



 * TIP: Just opening the app gives a quick view of what's up tonight/right now. 



 * TIP: Auto Mode (FAST) moves time by 24 hrs so you can watch how planets move night to night 



 * TIP: Search for new moons, planetary conjunctions, etc.

   

 * Long term orbits are interesting to investigate. Look at Pluto - a small object coming close to many large ones.  Mars is interesting, as are the Dwarf Planets.  (Planetary positions are well investigated and quite accurate to many thousands of years out.  Dwarf Planet orbits are far less stable and detailed orbital information needed to model their movements many hundreds and thousands of years into the future is no available or  not easy to find and use.  You can expect to see *significant* perturbations in these orbits next time an object passes nearer the center of the Solar System.  Such encounters are generally hundreds of years in the future. What happens after them is not known in detail! So take the first orbit of these objects as being close to reality.  After that, something different will definitely happen!)



**APP TECHNICAL DETAILS**



Using the [Greg Miller's VSOP Pico algorithm](https://github.com/gmiller123456/vsop87-multilang/blob/master/Languages/JavaScript/vsop87a_pico.js) gives [nearly all planetary positions 4000BC-6000AD within 1.2 degrees of actual position](https://celestialprogramming.com/vsop87-multilang/index.html) (and accuracy is far better 2125 +/-100 years).  Moving to the Nano algorithm was attempted and would improve accuracy by about 3X but takes a large amount of memory and runs far slower on today's smartwatches - perhaps in a future version!



Monkey C for Garmin IQ watches.



**CREDITS & LICENSE:**



_****** Planetary, sun, & moon positions:_  [Greg Miller's version of the VSOP Pico algorithm](https://github.com/gmiller123456/vsop87-multilang/blob/master/Languages/JavaScript/vsop87a_pico.js)



 ** LICENSE of Miller's VSOP code: PUBLIC DOMAIN



_******* Sunrise/Set calculations calculations and some astronomical functions (found in functions.mc)_ are adapted from:

    SolarSystem by Ioannis Nasios 

   https://github.com/IoannisNasios/solarsystem



 ** LICENSE & COPYRIGHT of Nasios's original code: The MIT License, Copyright (c) 2020, Ioannis Nasios.



 _******* Logo Image:_ Backlight Saturn, [PIA08329: In Saturn's Shadow](https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08329) Cassini Mission, credit NASA.



_SOFTWARE LICENSE_

 * Portions due to Greg Miller's implementation of the VSOP algorithm Public Domain.

 * Portions based on Ioannis Masios's Sunrise/Set algorithm, MIT License

 * Remainder Copyright 2024 Brent Hugh.