The New NOAA Solar Calculator

Yesterday while checking sunrise/sunset times for a mediumwave station, I came across NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's) new solar calculator web page. It is impressive.

NOAA Solar Calculator web page

Now using the Google Maps interface, you can move a map marker over a geographic point of interest and after specifying the date and time, automatically calculate the local sunrise and sunset times for that point. The latitude and longitude coordinates can be saved to a cookie for use on a subsequent visit to the page.

Additionally, the calculator displays solar data in the form of the Equation of Time, Solar Declination, Solar Noon, Solar Elevation, and Solar Azimuth (current right ascension of the sun). The formula is highly accurate.

The old NOAA Solar Calculator is still available here.

I've added the link to the new calculator to the right sidebar above the old calculator to keep it handy. Now we have an easy and foolproof way to get sunrise/sunset data for any point of interest, and quickly. Thank you NOAA!