MoonLock Jupiter

PLEASE NOTE: MoonLock has been superseded/replaced by TIDELOCK.

MoonLock Jupiter is a realistic simulator designed to provide accurate measurements of the position of Jupiter and the Galilean moons for the physical observation of the system. Although MoonLock Jupiter is not meant to be as accurate as NASA’s ephemerides, it is sufficiently accurate to be trusty and reliable if you wish to use your telescope and predict the position of the moons and upcoming events (such as moon transits, eclipses, shadows or the location of the Great Red Spot.)

"Sufficiently Accurate" is a direct reference to Jean Meeus. This program was written as an implementation of Astronomical Algorithms, originally developed by Jean Meeus: his incredible work in the field of Computational Astronomy has been the inspiration for many works, including this one...

These are the functions that MoonLock Jupiter can perform:

* Detailed ephemeris of Jupiter and its moons for a given date and time, including observer's coordinate and time location

* Visualization of the Galilean system including approach, transit, occultation, eclipses and position of the moons

* Real-time predictions for any given time (from the years 2000 to 2050)

* Realistic mechanical visualization of the Jovian Satellite System

* Predicted important events for times you set

* Ability to move time forward and backward and to zoom in and out of calculations and orbits

* "Sufficiently Accurate" results are good to 10 minutes within your location

To use MoonLock you must first establish your location profile (otherwise, all calculations default to midnight - Greenwich) - this is called your "observatory". You may look up your city's coordinated easily by searching google (for instance, "Washington DC coordinates" and simply enter the location angles provided in decimal form (e.g. 53.2366). Also check the box for Daylight Savings Time and enter your time offset from GMT (for instance, in the eastern US this would be 5 hours - no sign needed for positive offsets, use negative sign for negative offsets).

After you have done the above, simply click on any of the available functions (Ephemeris, Visualization or Events) and all should be set.