A Living Instrument · The Cosmic Sandbox

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Sun, Earth and Moon on one stage, lit by one true light. Spin the theatre and run the month — the phases fall out of the geometry by themselves. Switch to Calendar time to watch it play out on real dates, past or future.
An illustrative model in real light — sizes, distances and speeds are enlarged for the eye; in Calendar time the Sun and Moon's positions are the real ones, computed from their actual orbits.
drag to orbit · scroll to zoom
the Moon from Earth · दृश्य

This theatre needs WebGL, and your browser has declined it. The Dragon's Gate ribbon in the Grahaṇa lesson tells the same story in two dimensions.

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Time

Abstract time — run the month freely and watch New, Full and the two gates fall out of the geometry.

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−100 yrtoday+100 yr
Upcoming grahaṇas

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Grahaṇa here · the hours ग्रहणकाल

A grahaṇa keeps different hours in every town — and is no grahaṇa at all where it stands below the horizon. Name your place and the shadow is timed by your own clock.

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This place came from your chart. A calendar file leaves this browser — if you would rather it did not carry your birth place, name another city above.

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These, the pañcāṅga, the muhūrta windows and the slow transits go into one file at the foot of Today.

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Take the sky to
The experiment · why not every month?

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This is the real sky — no tilt to dial in here. The Moon's actual ~5° road is why grahaṇas cluster in two eclipse seasons a year, not every month.

Reading the stage — the gold ring is the Moon's road; the violet ring is the Sun's road, the ecliptic. ☊︎ Rāhu and ☋︎ Ketu mark the two gates where the roads cross — leave the sky running and watch them creep backward, once round in 18.6 years. The dark spot on Earth is the Moon's shadow when it lands; the Moon turns ember-red inside the Earth's.