What is it that I am looking for?

A few years back I was shown a credit card size and shape piece of aluminium that had engraved upon it the location of the sunrise and sunset for each month of the year.

At the time I thought that it will be a useful item to have in my camera bag, especially for deciding on a location for a dawn photo shoot. It was inexpensive and readily available. Unfortunately, my remaining brain cell has limited capacity and I no longer remember the name of the object, nor of the person who showed it to me, hence the reason for the question.

Do any of you know what it is I'm looking for and where may I purchase one?

Incidentally, living in a north-facing house I get to see the changes during the year of where the sun rises and sets with the way the light enters the house, so it is entirely feasible that I could record the information myself. In practise I am likely to forget to do this for weeks at a time and therefore the project taking several years to be completed...

Thank you.

Very much like that. Thank you Mike!

Google is, in general, very helpful at finding things but it works much better if you know what it is that you are looking for

I had not considered a software-based method of what I was looking for as when I first saw the calculator some years ago I didn't have a so-called smartphone.

The Ephemeris is interesting though and I'll look at it in more detail. Thank you Howard.

Neither option is of any use today, with thick cloud over the tops of the Pennines. We had some rain this morning which is a welcome change for the garden.

To be honest I just typed "sunset sunrise card" into Google

A compass can be quite a handy thing

Just what I was thinking and it is useful to have anyway. It's really quite straightforward to work out accurate positions and to learn how the Moon follows the Sun.

A compass is very useful and I keep one in my bag.

What is surpising to me, is how much variation there is in just where the sun rises and sets, with the available light having a markedly different effect due to its direction.

DrOrloff: are there any simple guides to learning how the moon follows the sun?

+1 for TPE

Another vote for TPE.

TPE and the OS map (either paper or on line (via Bing Maps)) for your chosen area (or whatever is the equivalent of OS if abroad) are a great combination in finding the direction and time of the sunset and rise and possible interesting locations for photos - hills, buildings, rivers, harbours, woods etc.

Dave

I saw a review of Photopills on another site and it seemed quite remarkable..... seems to be only for an iPhone though

http://www.photopills.com/

Have a look at the "Sun Surveyor" app for Android, costs £4.39 but worth every penny, shows sun/moon path on a 3D compass with timings

Simon

Thank you. That is a helpful site. Easy to use too.