tiny.cc/night-day-clock

Night/Day Clock with changing skin

         
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NIGHT SKIN DAY SKIN
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Night/Day Clock

This page displays the Auto Clock.   Its skin will change at 12-hour intervals. Use the "Test" button to preview what happens during those changes. To exit testing mode, press the "Test" button again while the 'wrong' skin is showing.

This is a 24-hour clock, but with a 12-hour dial. It differentiates between am and pm times by changing its skin every twelve hours. At mean sunrise, which is 6 am (06:00), it switches to the day skin, and at mean sunset, which is 6 pm (18:00), it switches to the night skin. It will also help you become more familiar with 24-hour time notation, in which the hours are numbered from 0 to 23.

When examining this clock, note how the hours are numbered and the different colouring used for the daytime hours and the night-time hours. In particular, pay attention to the continuity of the numbering across the six-o'clock position at the bottom of the clock.

That exercise may also answer the question, why did I call this a Night/Day clock rather than a Day/Night clock? One reason is this: In any calendar, the time at which a new calendar-day begins is zero hours of the day in that calendar. Now, in the Gregorian calendar (which is the civil calendar used almost universally), does zero hours occur during the day or during the night?

You may also like my JMT Clock.

Note: For this site to work properly, your browser must support the HTML5 Canvas object and have javascript enabled (which is recommended and is quite safe).

I am developing this into a teaching tool to help people understand certain principles of positional astronomy, especially in relation to the Sun-Earth-Moon system, and how those principles are used in different calendar systems. Any offer of help with this project will be gratefully accepted.