This Plugin is outdated, see version 2 instead!

Hello,

this is a plugin plugin that gives shows sun and moon position on the map and gives details about sunset and sunrise times as well as other sun and moon details. It is called windy-plugin-sun-position. To use the plugin on mobile, go directly to www.windy.com/plugins to open the plugin page (does not work in the app)

Version 0.3.0 adds moon details and options to disable astronomical details or blue/golden hour times

To open the display, right-click on the map (or tap and hold on mobile), then select "Sun Position". Then open a weather picker to see the sun dial and the details on the left.

Dial

The dial displays the current sun and moon azimuth on the map using a black line from the picker position. Additionally, dashed lines show the azimuth of sunrise and sunset and dotted lines show the azimuth of moonrise and moonset. Clicking on the sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset lines will set the current time to the respective time.

Detail pane

The detail pane on the left shows the time of astronomical, nautical, and civil dusk and dawn; start and end of blue and golden hour and solar noon. Moonrise and moonset times are also added to the timeline. Below, a diagram of the sun and moon altitudes over time is displayed. Below that, details about the current sun and moon position are shown.

On the top of the detail pane it is possible to enable and disable individual displays. The telescope toggles visibility of astronomical sun details (astronomical and nautical dawn and dusk). The camera toggles visibility of blue and golden hour times. The moon toggles visibility of moon details.

Changelog

V0.1.0

Original release

V0.1.1

Fixed timezone issues:

• Displays times in timezone of position selected (instead of local timezone of user)
• When Windy setting to display all times in UTC is selected, displays all times in UTC

V0.2.0

• The hook has been changed from the Overlay layers menu to the context-menu.
• Displays only times that exist: If the sun does not go far enough below the horizon, astronomical dawn and dusk might not exist and the entire night is astronomical twilight. In this (and more extreme) cases the non-existent times are hidden
• The plugin now works on mobile (thanks @rittels for the help)
• Fixed some delay issues that resulted from the timezone-lookup

V0.3.0

• reworked detail phase
• included details about the moon
• fixed blue hour times
• redesigned current sun position display
• added options to disable moon, astronomical details and photography details separately
• added footnote with links to plugin pages

V0.3.1

• desktop sidebar hotfix (broken by change on windy)

V0.3.2

• fixed plugin loading issue (broken by change on windy)
• changed timezone lookup to tz-lookup package
• added query string

V0.3.3

• fixed plugin loading issue (broken by change on windy)

V0.3.4

• fixed issue finding location (broken by change on windy)

V2.0.0 and beyond

see https://community.windy.com/topic/32647/sun-position-plugin-v2

Hi @stitch ,

I have just published a new version (v0.1.1) that fixes this problem. Now, times are displayed in the timezone of the position selected. If you want to see the times in UTC, you need to enable the "Display all times in UTC" option (zuluMode) in the windy settings.

Jochen

I've now released version 0.3.3 that fixes the loading issues. Sorry for the delay.

A Windy plugin that shows sun and moon positions on the map and gives details about sunset and sunrise times as well as other sun and moon details. This is a full rewrite of version 1 to work with the new windy plugin api and includes a number of improvements.

To use it on Desktop go to Menu -> Install Windy Plugin -> Sun and Moon position -> Install plugin. You can then access it by right-clicking on the map and selecting Sun Position. The plugin will stay available even after a reload. (Mobile TBD)

Dial

The dial displays the current sun and moon azimuth on the map using a black line from the picker position. Additionally, dashed lines show the azimuth of sunrise and sunset and dotted lines show the azimuth of moonrise and moonset.

Detail pane

The detail pane on the right shows current azimuth and altitude of the sun and moon and their rise and set times. It also shows the current sunlight condition (such as golden hour), and moon phase. Optionally, a timeline can be activated, that shows the timing of astronomical and nautical twilight, and blue and golden hour.

The top of the pane shows a diagram of the sun and moon altitudes over the curse of the current day.

Changelog

See here for the changelog of version 1

v2.0.0-alpha.8 (compared to v0.3.6)

• Completely rewritten plugin for windy plugin api v2.
• Using svelte to make plugin more modular
• more compact design
• the dial is no longer bound to the picker and can be moved independently
• added weather information to the timeline
• separate small mobile ui with 3 tabs
• removed the option to hide specific parts of the timeline

V2.0.0-beta.1

• support for radar and satellite timelines
• fix bug when clicking on nadir time in timeline

I have just released version 0.3.0 of the plugin! This update adds details about the moon position. The moon position is shown on the map similar to the sun position. Additional dotted lines show the moonrise and moonset directions. The detail pane also includes the moonrise and moonset times and some details about the current position of the moon. The moon display can be hidden by clicking the moon button the top of the details pane.

Furthermore, I have added options to hide some sun details, grouped by Astronomical and Photography. Astronomical shows astronomical, nautical and civil twilight times and Photography shows blue and golden hour times. Both groups can be enabled together, showing all times as before the update (nautical twilight was wrongly labeled blue hour before the update, while blue hour really is part of the civil twilight).

I've just released version 0.3.1 to fix the sidebar issue caused by windy changes.

I have just released version 0.2.0 of the plugin. It hides the times that do not exist in the detail pane and now supports the mobile page (see changelog in the post on top). To facilitate mobile usage the hook to access the plugin has changed from the Overlay menu to the context menu. Simply right-click the map (or tap and hold on mobile) and click on "Sun Position" to open the plugin

I have just released version 0.3.2 of the plugin. The plugin was broken because the pluginDataLoader changed. I only used the pluginDataLoader for a timezone lookup. As that wasn't a good solution anyway I am now using the tz-lookup package instead. So hopefully it wont break as easily in the future.

Furthermore this update makes use of the query string: For example you can now directly open https://www.windy.com/plugins/windy-plugin-sun-position?photoSun=true&astroSun=false&moon=false to get only photography sun details.

Plugin version 0.3.6 fixes the loading issues caused by changes to windy. Sorry it took this long.

This is now the 5th time in 4 years I had to update the plugin because some change to windy broke it. If this trend continues, I can't guarantee that I'd be willing/able to do this in the future - especially if the info about the breaking changes comes from users complaining that it doesn't work anymore; some less polite than others. Unless things change, this is no longer an ecosystem I want to spend time contributing to.

So if someone else wants to take over the maintenance of this plugin - or rewrite it - they are more than welcome to do so; otherwise this might be the last update. Thanks for the support until now though!

@welpixuae Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately there are multiple systems of Azimuth in use. The one I display is measured from south to the west. Changing to north to east could be an option. But some systems then switch this around on the southern hemisphere. So this isn't a straight forward issue.

Altitude is the correct term for the angle between the sun and the horizontal plane, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_coordinate_system.

@welpixuae Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately there are multiple systems of Azimuth in use. The one I display is measured from south to the west. Changing to north to east could be an option. But some systems then switch this around on the southern hemisphere. So this isn't a straight forward issue.

Altitude is the correct term for the angle between the sun and the horizontal plane, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_coordinate_system.

@davidkingham Thank you for the suggestion. The reason I haven't done that is that I also use the length of the line to indicate the altitude of the sun. Also, with very small zoom levels (i.e. when showing large parts of the earth), a straight line is a bit misleading.
I would rather make the lines have a meaningful length, such as the ~100 miles you mentioned when showing low clouds.
I can't promise when I'll get to it though.

For anyone following this topic still: I've made a new post about the new version 2 of this plugin. You can find it at https://community.windy.com/topic/32647/sun-position-plugin-v2

A Windy plugin that shows sun and moon positions on the map and gives details about sunset and sunrise times as well as other sun and moon details. This is a full rewrite of version 1 to work with the new windy plugin api and includes a number of improvements.

To use it on Desktop go to Menu -> Install Windy Plugin -> Sun and Moon position -> Install plugin. You can then access it by right-clicking on the map and selecting Sun Position. The plugin will stay available even after a reload. (Mobile TBD)

Dial

The dial displays the current sun and moon azimuth on the map using a black line from the picker position. Additionally, dashed lines show the azimuth of sunrise and sunset and dotted lines show the azimuth of moonrise and moonset.

Detail pane

The detail pane on the right shows current azimuth and altitude of the sun and moon and their rise and set times. It also shows the current sunlight condition (such as golden hour), and moon phase. Optionally, a timeline can be activated, that shows the timing of astronomical and nautical twilight, and blue and golden hour.

The top of the pane shows a diagram of the sun and moon altitudes over the curse of the current day.

Changelog

See here for the changelog of version 1

v2.0.0-alpha.8 (compared to v0.3.6)

• Completely rewritten plugin for windy plugin api v2.
• Using svelte to make plugin more modular
• more compact design
• the dial is no longer bound to the picker and can be moved independently
• added weather information to the timeline
• separate small mobile ui with 3 tabs
• removed the option to hide specific parts of the timeline

V2.0.0-beta.1

• support for radar and satellite timelines
• fix bug when clicking on nadir time in timeline

Plugin version 0.3.6 fixes the loading issues caused by changes to windy. Sorry it took this long.

This is now the 5th time in 4 years I had to update the plugin because some change to windy broke it. If this trend continues, I can't guarantee that I'd be willing/able to do this in the future - especially if the info about the breaking changes comes from users complaining that it doesn't work anymore; some less polite than others. Unless things change, this is no longer an ecosystem I want to spend time contributing to.

So if someone else wants to take over the maintenance of this plugin - or rewrite it - they are more than welcome to do so; otherwise this might be the last update. Thanks for the support until now though!

I've now released version 0.3.4 that fixes another loading issue that resulted from changes on windy.

I've now released version 0.3.3 that fixes the loading issues. Sorry for the delay.

@idefix37 @JHMARSHAL Sorry about that. I haven't kept track of windy the updates. I'll fix the plugin when I find the time to do so (hopefully soon).

@rittels

No, the golden hour is defined as sun elevations between 6 degrees above and 4 degrees below the horizon. So the golden hour does start before the sunset and also continues until after sunrise. The entire time range in orange is the Golden Hour. Also, in very high latitudes the entire day might be "golden hour" as the sun never reaches higher than 6 degrees above the horizon.

(Also see the screenshot in the original post, it was always this way ;) )

I have just released version 0.3.2 of the plugin. The plugin was broken because the pluginDataLoader changed. I only used the pluginDataLoader for a timezone lookup. As that wasn't a good solution anyway I am now using the tz-lookup package instead. So hopefully it wont break as easily in the future.

Furthermore this update makes use of the query string: For example you can now directly open https://www.windy.com/plugins/windy-plugin-sun-position?photoSun=true&astroSun=false&moon=false to get only photography sun details.