KosherJava

Question:How do I get the Jewish Date for … using the Zmanim API? Answer:The current version of the Zanim API does not support Jewish calendrical calculations. Zmanim are almost exclusively based on the solar calendar, so for example, the sunrise on February 8th this year in Montreal (or any other date and location), will be [...]

I was recently contacted by Jan Terje Johansen, a developer at Datek Wireless AS in Norway, with an interesting bug report. Datek uses the Zmanim API (the AstronomicalCalendar base class) to allow their clients (the power company and stadiums) to remotely (via a web interface) control streetlights and stadium lights throughout Norway using a wireless [...]

The Zmanim API was developed from the ground up as an API which allows for easy plugging in of different algorithms. The Zmanim API ships with 3 “Calculator” implementations. Two calculators implement the US Naval Observatory’s algorithm, the SunTimesCalculator and the ZmanimCalculator. Both produce identical zmanim using slightly different code and are included for comparison. [...]

A user contacted me with the following note (some details removed). Could you please explain to me why there seems to be nearly a three minute discrepancy between the zemanim for XXXXX, NJ at 20 meters (exact location) and those listed for 20 meters on the MyZmanim.com site. Your site calculates 4/20 at 6:08:20 and [...]

A lookup tool for elevation lookup was added to the Zmanim Calendar Generator page. This service is courtesy of Jonathan Stott’s earthtools.org elevation webservice. This Elevation data currently only covers all of mainland Europe (between latitudes 35°N and 60°N and longitudes 35°E and 15°W) and all of the contiguous states of the United States of [...]