This window displays the phases of the Moon day by day for a given month. You access this tool with the command Moon phases... in the Tools menu. Ctrl+Z is a shortcut for this command.
You can choose the month for which the phases are displayed by selecting it directly in the drop down list at the bottom left of the window, or by using the buttons in the upper part of the window. A double click with the mouse on one of the phase image allows you to change the map current date to the day which has been selected. Small bars at the top of the Moon images show the disturbance which is caused by the Moon for a given night: the left side of the bar represents the beginning of the night and the right side represents the end of the night. The clearer the bar is, the higher the disturbance. This disturbance is computed by taking into account the Moon phase as well as the altitude above the horizon during the night. They allow you to see at a glance if the Moon will be disturbing for observations during a given night.
The color code which is used to display the days of the month is the following:
- for a day which is both the current system day and the current day of the
map: light green
- for a day which is the current day of the map but not the current system
day: orange
- for a day which the current system day but not the current day of the map:
light red
- otherwise: light yellow
To get information about one of the components of this window, left-click on it in the image below: