Astronomy Calculator was an inspiration. Unfortunately, I get remember the exact circumstances for that inspiration.
One part probably has to do when I was brainstorming about building mobile astronomy apps and realized it would be cool to display the time of sunset. I did some Google searching and couldn’t find a service that I could use. So, I thought I would probably have to build my own. I did some research and found a few books on astronomical calculations. Thus, Astronomy Calculator was born.
The second part had to do with theory and thus math. In my daydreaming about astronomy, I realized that predominately I wanted to look up at the sky. But, then I figured I would want to know why. So, I did some research into astronomical theory and found a book. However, I quickly learned that my math skills were rusty so more books where needed as a refresher.
My goals for Astronomy Calculator are two-fold. First, I want to create a series of astronomical calculations to ask questions about astronomy, the stars, the moon, the planets, and the sun. I want these calculations to be easy and straightforward. Secondly, I was learn how to do web programming to put this all online. If you are interesting in the technical details, I am blogging at ML2 Solutions on these topics.