"Sun Rise - Sun Set?" Topic

A great web site. link

When I am putting together Wargame scenario I like to include what time the sun comes up and goes down.
and all the other little things that could happen do to viability or lack of it.

I found this site a year or to ago and it comes in very handy.

You can get the info you need for the U.S. or any place else. If the location you type in is not that well known you may have to put in a larger town nearby. Example it dose not have Manassas VA in its data base but it dose Have Washington DC.

Here is an example for Gettysburg PA on 1 July 1863.

Sun and Moon Data for One Day
The following information is provided for Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania (longitude W77.2, latitude N39.8):

Monday
1 July 1861 Eastern Standard Time

SUN
Begin civil twilight 4:11 a.m.
Sunrise 4:44 a.m.
Sun transit 12:12 p.m.
Sunset 7:41 p.m.
End civil twilight 8:13 p.m.

MOON
Moonrise 11:58 p.m. on preceding day
Moon transit 6:55 a.m.
Moonset 2:00 p.m.
Moonrise 12:26 a.m. on following day

Phase of the Moon on 1 July: waning crescent with 35% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.
Last quarter Moon on 29 June 1861 at 9:40 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Or if you would rather have,
YouTube link

מזל טוב or mazal tov……. Interesting site though Rob

Trouble is, there was no such thing as Eastern Standard Time in 1863.

A few years back was interested in determining the light around the time of the Confederate artillery barrage on July 3rd, 1863 and how it would compare to current time. BY checking almanacs (then and now) I was able to come up with a reasonable guess. There appears to have been an hour and six minute difference, between 1863 local time and the modern EDT (Eastern Day Light Saving Time). Armed with this information and a buck and quarter($1.25) I was able to get a beer at the Legion Post.

Thanks 11th ACR. I've used that website before for WW2.

Trouble is, there was no such thing as Eastern Standard Time in 1863.

You don't really need to know that – current times will give you the relevant hours of daylight on that particular date which is generally all you would want unless you are matching with tides etc. If part of a campaign, and you need to co-ordinate different forces, then pick an arbitrary moment as "zero hour" and start from there.

I believe that there are appropriate almanacs for the past 2-3 centuries at least.

Interesting – I use this one:

link

I think I can find a use for this. Thanks for sharing.

Not sure if ancient times is what you're after but DBMM rules have a nice table of typical dawn, dusk and sunrise and sunset times for various climate zones.

cheers

The trouble with times in 1863, for instance, is that you can't trust what participants said about what time something happened. Even if their memory at the time they wrote was accurate, who knows what they had their watch set to at the time (excuse the expression)? Often many participants gave completely different times for the same event.

It is useful to know day lengths at the various latitudes at particular times of year though, particularly in northerly and southerly climes.

Thanks for posting; I will find this useful

Probably the best way to get a working pre-modern time is to set noon (Solar transit) at 12noon. The concept of daylight saving is a modern one, and local time would usually be by reference to the sun.

However any times given by local witnesses has to be treated with caution!