Latitude and Longitude Setting

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First, a brief, basic explanation. "Latitude" and "longitude" are simply a way to describe a location on the earth. Together they can pinpoint your specific location. Latitude is a measurement of how far away you are from the earth's equator. Longitude is a measurement of how far away you are from the "prime meridian" that runs through Greenwich, England. The Help screen in QuickPhase explains these terms in more detail.

However, you really only need to know two things: 1) How to look up your latitude and longitude, and 2) How to enter those numbers into QuickPhase.

Before I explain, it's useful to know that latitude and longitude are only needed if you want to view moonrise, moonset, and moon position (altitude and azimuth) data. If you only want to get data for the moon's phase (i.e., full, new, age, percent of full), all you need to provide is a time zone. This is also good to know if, for instance, you are temporarily looking up the moon's phase in another worldwide location. In that case, just change the time zone. The moonrise/set/position data will be wrong for that time zone, but the phase will be correct. Make sense?

OK, let's get latitude and longitude set up.

Step 1: Look up your latitude and longitude

There is a latitude/longitude lookup page on CalculatorCat.com that provides a few online website resources you can use, as well as INSTRUCTIONS on how to use the suggested websites.

You should end up with 3 numbers for each coordinate in degree, minute, second format. Example: "60 31 00 N" for latitude and "121 17 00 W" for longitude.

There is a converter to use on the CalculatorCat.com page if you need to convert from a "decimal" version of your coordinates.
I recommend trying www.Getty.edu first. You will see a gray box near the top of the page. Type your city in the "Find Name" field. Then click "Search". Your town or city should be listed among the results. If you get too many results, you can type "inhabited place" or "city" into the "Place Type" field. If your city isn't found, you may be able to find a nearby city.

Click on your location in the results. On the page that comes up, look for the "Coordinates" section.

Your latitude coordinate is listed after the "Lat" label, for example: "Lat: 60 31 00 N degrees minutes". The important part is the 3 numbers and the letter. In case it isn't obvious, the letters N and S are abbreviations for North and South.

Your longitude is similar; it will look something like "Long: 121 17 00 W degrees minutes" (E means East, W means West).

Of course, your coordinate numbers will be different! This is just an example. */ ?>

Step 2: Enter your latitude and longitude into QuickPhase

Click the "Config" button in the top menu. Enter the 3 latitude numbers into the "Your latitude" fields, and select either N or S. Then enter the 3 longitude numbers into the "Your longitude" fields, and select either E or W.

You should also select your Time Zone while you're on this screen.

Don't forget to click "Save and Apply".

Optional: Targeting other locations

If you want to check the moonrise, moonset or moon position for another location, you don't need to change the setting in the Config screen. In fact, it's better if you don't.

Instead, click the white "Location:" label in the top bar -- or click the little white arrow at the bottom left of the screen -- and enter the latitude and longitude coordinates in the appropriate fields. These coordinates will be forgotten when you exit QuickPhase.

Miscellaneous notes

If you cannot find your location (or a close neighboring location) on www.Getty.edu, you could find someone who has a GPS unit and they could look it up for you. You may also find other resources online. Please let me know if you find any other good sites.

About decimal coordinates: You'll notice on Getty.edu that your Lat/Long coordinates are also given in decimal format, like "Lat: 60.5167 decimal degrees". If you look up your coordinates elsewhere, you might only be given the decimal format. If that is the case, you can easily convert it to "degrees minutes seconds" format using the converter on CalculatorCat.com here.