VelaClock

VelaClock is a world clock widget with a highly configurable user interface. Users can quickly display the time of sunrise, sunset, or twilight, duration of daylight, moonrise, moonset, phase of moon, time zone information and more.

The interface of VelaClock can easily be configured to use a minimum amount of screen space or if the user wishes, more detailed information about the currently selected city can be displayed. The top pane of VelaClock displays a list of cities and corresponding local times. Multiple lower panes can be opened to display more information and take up more screen space (each pane has a full and a minimized version):

• A light level bar that gives the user a picture of the 24 hours of natural light (bright daylight, three kinds of twilight and night) for the current day. A thin white bar indicates when the moon is visible. Daylight duration and the change in minutes of daylight from the previous day are also displayed.
• Specific times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset. Begin/end times for civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight can also be displayed.
• An image of the moon as seen in the sky above the currently selected city. This image accurately depicts the angle of the moon's crescent. Because this angle can change dramatically within the span of an hour, it is updated once a minute, as is the moon's phase. This view also contains the name of the current phase, as well as local times for the next and previous phase events (new, quarter, full).
• An analog clock and detailed time zone information, including full time zone name and the number of hours the selected city is ahead or behind the user's current time zone (as set in System Preferences). The current season name (winter, etc.) is also displayed.

No Internet connection is required. VelaClock is a unique widget in that it is completely self-contained. Many widgets are lightweight front-ends to Web services; such widgets require an Internet connection. By contrast, VelaClock is designed to function without an Internet connection, and so is particularly useful for laptop users away from their home or office. Astronomical calculations are performed by an internal code module.