Sunlight tool in Google Earth

I'm sure a lot of us use some incarnation of Google Maps/Earth to plan our photo excursions, but I just wanted to point out a pretty nifty tool that just helped me decide whether a particular destination was a sunrise/sunset spot.

In Google Earth the sunlight tool (small sun button at the top) can actually animate the sunlight/shadows across a landscape as the day progresses. You can drag a slider to a particular time of day to decide where you want to set your camera up. Pretty cool.

Thanks for posting Bryan. I use GE quite often and this is a neat feature.

I think this has been posted before, but another great tool that utilizes Google Earth is Stephen Trainor's The Photographer's Ephemeris. It combines GE with sun/moon rise/set times, azimuths, etc. etc. Very cool for nailing down when/where the sun/moon will rise or set. The only feature I wish he had was a print feature - but can't complain about anything that's free.

Lon

Thanks for the tip, Bryan, I use Google Earth quite often for planning my trips, but never noticed that function... Thanks, it is really helpful! And thanks Lon too, that's a nice tool. Simple, but very clear and useful as well.

Paolo

Here's two other great tools: http://stellarium.org/ - Stellarium is a great free download to see what the sky will look like at any point on the planet, including sun, moon, stars, etc, with a lot of great info & some you don't need. It also has animation to show sky as it would move in real time. It's a planitarium on your PC.
Another tool is from http://iconico.com/ - it's a screen protractor that can overlay GM to see what the exact angles are - it's $29.95.