Ouachita Sunrise

Many of you no doubt already know about a program called The Photographer's Ephemeris, which is a great aid for sunrise/sunset/moonrise/moonset chasers in that it uses Google maps technology to show times and directions of sun and moon rises and sets. I'm pretty sure I first heard about it from John Moore, and it has proved to be one of the most helpful tools in my software bag.

As an example, this image is one I've been thinking about taking for a couple of years now, but it was TPE that helped me pin down the range of dates when the sun would be rising in the right place, which was critical because this location is about four hours by car and on foot from my home.

Also see on my home page a larger version which has not been demolished by NPN compression.

I forgot to mention that TPE is free software that can be downloaded at:

http://photoephemeris.com/

Uff, maybe I'm the one who demolished the image by forgetting to save to the sRGB color space.

Yep, it was me.

impressive layers, I think the clouds partially obscuring the sun add even more interest

Well done!! Sounds like a great tool too.

I've been using that software for a couple of years. The sun is easy to track since it is so predictable, just a slow progression day after day, but what I use the program for is the moon - it varies wildly from one day to the next, and the software does a great job of showing the rise and fall locations. Got it on my ipad too.

Nice shot! I love TPE, it is really a great tool. Can't wait for it to come out for Droid phones.

Randy, it looks like your efforts paid off well! Very nice shot.

Sweet! I love scenes like this.

Randy, that's awesome! I'd not heard of the software, I'll be downloading it this morning. I have a spot or two around here that I've just not been able to be there at the right time. Sounds like that will really help. Thanks for the image, it will aid in my healing this day.

TPE has really been growing on me lately, all for the moon. It is a lot better than the charts with meridian degrees that I have been using. Hey Tim, any idea if there is an iphone app for it?

Those are some pretty vivid colors of the sun, Randy - beautiful!

I've been playing around with the TPE download and was hoping to find a way to work the system in reverse, where I could move the colored sun/moon paths to a desired azimuth from a known location, and it would determine the date on which the various sun and moon rise/set events would occur. Are you just marking your location on the google map, then determining the sun/moon event dates of interest empirically, or is there a faster way? Are you using a Brunton compass to measure an azimuth/bearing from your shooting location, or using landforms on the google map to determine an azimuth? Sorry for so many questions, but I could see where this would be a great time saver if I actually knew what the software was capable of doing. I've been using a combination of a clinometer, Brunton, and Navy charts. Determining these dates heuristically can be pretty time-consuming. Thanks for the link.

Matt, there's a link on the TPE home page that will take you to the iPhone app download on iTunes.

Bill, I don't know of a way you can work the lines to get a date. Since the sun proceeds methodically, it's pretty quick to make a few jumps with the calendar and get to the date where the lines are right, though, at least in my experience. With the moon , I usually don't look beyond the next full moon, and so there are just one or two dates to check to see where it will be rising or setting from a given location.

Usually I'm familiar with the locations and landforms from being there in person and can usually match them up pretty well with what I see on the google maps terrain view. So when I see the TPE lines where I want to see the sun rising with respect to the landforms I'm familiar with from being there, I note the date or date range and save it in my sunrise/sunset notes.

The most I've ever done with respect to determining bearings in person is to get a rough heading with an ordinary compass. TPE has made that approach pretty much obsolete for me.

I hope these answers are helpful.

Really love the layers in this Randy. Thanks for sharing.

Hi All - I saw the traffic from this thread hitting the TPE website, so stopped by to have a read (I've been a member over at RMNP for a couple of years now).

Currently you can't use TPE in reverse to specify an azimuth/altitude and find the date, however tools such as Heavenly Opportunity do allow that sort of search.

TPE for iPhone (and shortly, iPad), however, does allow you to search for sun/moon rise or set at a specified azimuth/bearing. From that, if you're familiar with how the moon tends to move about in its cycle, you can usually check the days before/after full or new moon to find the bearing you need. I'll look at adding more alignment search capabilities into a future version, perhaps.

Randy - here's another vote for the layering in your image. It looks great!

Happy shooting...

Thanks, Randy and Stephen. It's interesting to note how much more familiar we become with the natural world when we pay attention to these kinds of things. Besides noticing the general position of the sun and moon throughout the year, familiarity with the Navy charts has allowed me to predict within a month or so where the sun and full moon rise/set will be located. For many shots, that's close enough. But for some, like Randy's wonderfully composed image shown here, a bit more accuracy and planning are needed. Nice work, Randy.

Really nice image Randy, and obviously well thought out. Great little tool...I will have to check in to that.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments, and special thanks to Stephen for his wonderful program and also for coming by to answer some questions.