Moon Phase Calculator

# Determine the moon phase of a date given
# Python code by HAB

def moon_phase(month, day, year):
    ages = [18, 0, 11, 22, 3, 14, 25, 6, 17, 28, 9, 20, 1, 12, 23, 4, 15, 26, 7]
    offsets = [-1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9]
    description = ["new (totally dark)",
      "waxing crescent (increasing to full)",
      "in its first quarter (increasing to full)",
      "waxing gibbous (increasing to full)",
      "full (full light)",
      "waning gibbous (decreasing from full)",
      "in its last quarter (decreasing from full)",
      "waning crescent (decreasing from full)"]
    months = ["Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"]
    
    if day == 31:
        day = 1
    days_into_phase = ((ages[(year + 1) % 19] + ((day + offsets[month-1]) % 30) + (year < 1900)) % 30)
    index = int((days_into_phase + 2) * 16/59.0)
    if index > 7:
        index = 7
    status = description[index]
    
    # light should be 100% 15 days into phase
    light = int(2 * days_into_phase * 100/29)
    if light > 100:
        light = abs(light - 200);
    date = "%d%s%d" % (day, months[month-1], year)
    
    return date, status, light


# put in a date you want ...
month = 5
day = 14
year = 2006  # use yyyy format

date, status, light = moon_phase(month, day, year)
print "moon phase on %s is %s, light = %d%s" % (date, status, light, '%')