Codebox Software

This JavaScript library can be used to draw somewhat realistic lunar or planetary discs, complete with phase shadows:

The library requires that browsers support the CSS border-radius and box-shadow properties, which means it should work everywhere except IE8 (and earlier).

To use the library, just include the planet_phase.js file somewhere in your page, and call the drawPlanetPhase function once for each disc that you want to draw.

The simplest way to call the function is like this:

drawPlanetPhase(document.getElementById('container'), 0.15, true);

• The first argument is the HTML element that you want to contain the disc.
• The second argument must be a value between 0 and 1, indicating how large the shadow should be:
  • 0 = new moon
  • 0.25 = crescent
  • 0.50 = quarter
  • 0.75 = gibbous
  • 1.00 = full moon
• The third argument is a boolean value indicating whether the disc should be waxing or waning (i.e. which side of the disc the shadow should be on):
  • true = waxing - shadow on the left
  • false = waning - shadow on the right
• The function also accepts an optional fourth argument, containing configuration values which change the size, colour and appearance of the disc:
  • shadowColour - CSS background-colour value for the shaded part of the disc
  • lightColour - CSS background-colour value for the illuminated part of the disc
  • diameter - diameter of the disc in pixels
  • earthshine - a number between 0 and 1, specifying the amount of light falling on the shaded part of the disc (0 = none, 1 = full illumination)
  • blur - amount of blur on the terminator in pixels (0 = no blur)