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Forum URL: http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: Our Witches at War/Gallian Gothic
Topic ID: 116
#0, a note on tools
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-03-20 at 08:06 PM
In the first OWaW 21 thread, Zemyla said:
>Hah. I just mostly extrapolated from the full moon being on Friday.
>The moon cycle isn't precisely 28 days, though, so the days of full
>and new moons must change at some point. Well bowled.

I should probably have noted sooner, in the interest of credit where it's due, that when I found myself writing a storyline in which the precise phase of the moon became an important recurring plot point, I went looking for some way of determining when they should be happening. I suppose I could just have made something up and claimed parallel universe/artistic license if anyone had called me on it, but I like for details like that to be as close as I can reasonably get them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are a number of websites out there that offer means of looking up historical astronomical information. The tool I finally ended up settling on for the moon phases, because I like its interface the best, is the one at moongiant.com. I linked it in my reply to the post the above quote is from, but I thought I should make a special point of crediting that particular source, because I have leaned on it a lot while plotting Gallian Gothic and its ongoing intersection with OWaW proper.

I've also made use of sunrisesunset.com to work out, for instance, when Remilia and Gryphon ought to be thinking about leaving Colmar in order to be back at the SDM before sunrise in GG2/III.

For all that I have a lot of misgivings about the Internet these days, I remain gratified to a childlike degree that tools like this are out there. Twenty, 25 years ago, if I wanted to write something like that and get it anywhere close to right, I'd have had to try and find an almanac or something from 1946. Now, I just push some buttons in the right order, and... there it is.

--G.
of course, the same availability of information makes it much easier for anyone to call me on it if I just made it up, but, details :)
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