This gadget provides some up-to-date information on the Moon. This includes:

• an approximate image of the moon as it appears from your location. In particular, the orientation of the moon should be much as you see it when you walk outside and look up in the sky;
• some information on the moon's current position;
• information on upcoming phases;
• moon rise and set times for your location.

The default behaviour is to estimate your location by using an IP address geolocation service (we currently use ipinfodb.com). If that doesn't work well for you, or if you'd like to see things for a different location, please set your location in the module configuration (detailed below). You can just type in the name of a city. You can also type in IAU/MPC observatory designations. This works by looking up the supplied location using the telescope-net geocoding service. If this doesn't work, you might need to configure your longitude and latitude directly in to the gadget (again, see below).

• Use the Google Gadget version on iGoogle.
  You can place the gadget on your iGoogle page. This will give you the added flexibility of being able to select the information which is shown. To add this gadget to your iGoogle page, please click here:

• Use the Google Gadget version on your own webpages.
  You can place the gadget on webpages of your own. Please click here to make this happen:
  If you are placing the gadget on your own web pages, please remember the two broad ways in which the gadget is used. First, showing the moon as it appears for your particular observing location. You should set the "Location" parameter in this case (or the "Latitude" and "Longitude" parameters), and then everyone who visits your webpage will see the moon as it appears there. Second, showing the moon as it appears for whomever happens to visit your webpage. In this case, you should leave the "Location", "Latitude" and "Longitude" blank. The gadget will look up an approximate location for each visitor (based on their IP address) and display the moon appropriately for them.

• Location
  To do its work, the gadget needs a rough idea of where you are on the Earth. If you leave the latitude and longitude boxes (below) blank, and this Location box is also blank, the gadget will attempt to locate you by using your IP address. This is looked up using an IP geolocation service (we use the service provided by ipinfodb.com). If this doesn't work well for you, or if you'd like to get information for a different location, you can type the name of a city here. This utilises the telescope-net geocoding service, which includes information on cities (with populations of ~100000 or more people), IAU/MPC observatories, as well as other observing sites and telescopes from the telescope-net system.

• Latitude and longitude
  If you'd like to set your position on the Earth more accurately, you can specify your latitude and longitude directly here. There are many tools and pages on the web to help you ascertain your lat and long. For example, this tool, or this list. Failing that, you could use Google Earth to find your location and read the longitude and latitude off of the screen.
   
  The gadget takes latitude and longitude in any reasonable form. For longitude, East of Greenwich is positive and West of Greenwich is negative. For latitude, North of the Equator is positive, and South of the Equator is negative. Examples of valid longitude values are "153.15", "153 9 E", "153:09:00 East". Examples of valid latitude values are "-27.1", "27:06:00 S", "-27 6", "-27 06 South". If you specify a valid latitude and longitude, these will override anything you enter in the "Location" option (discussed above).

• Angular size of moon
  If you tick this box, the angular size of the moon will be included in the displayed text.

• Angle from sun
  If you tick this box, the angular distance between the moon and the sun will be included in the displayed text.

• Don't rotate
  Don't rotate the image of the moon. Also, the "current info" text will not contain any information which depends on your observing location.

• Upcoming phases
  Lists the next four upcoming phases of the moon, along with their dates and times, and the constellation in which the moon will be located.

• Rise and set info
  Prints rise and set events for the moon as seen from this location. Events occuring within some hours of "now" are listed, with the number of hours set below. The default is to list events which occur within ±24 hours of "now".

• Hours to show rise and set events
  This sets the window of time within which lunar rise and set events will be shown. You can change that window to be as small as ±6 hours, or as large as ± 48 hours, by using this parameter.

• Don't show absolute times
  The problem with putting a time on a computer screen is that you have to get the user's timezone right, and get it right for every user every time. You can sidestep this issue by ticking this box. If you do, the times of rise and set events will only include the time to or from each event; e.g., "in 3 hrs 38 mins".

• Show times in UTC
  This is my preferred option, but that's just me. Times of rising and setting are always displayed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is basically the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This doesn't change with timezone or with Daylight Savings Time.

• Display times in this timezone
  If you set your Latitude and Longitude explcitly, you might need to set your timezone here. Please enter your timezone offset (in hours) here; e.g., for Brisbane, Australia, one would enter "10" because Brisbane is 10 hours ahead of UTC.

• Display your local times in AM/PM format
  If you are displaying times in your local timezone, check this box to display them as AM or PM. Leaving the box unchecked will use a 24-hr clock.