Perpetual Chinese Calendar

LunarCal - Program Description & Download

Please note: LunarCal is "Charityware". This means if you find the program useful and continue to use it, please donate some money (any amount which you feel comfortable) to your any charity organization.

Description:
LunarCal is a program that enumerates the Chinese calendar - past, present and future. It will display 160 years of the Chinese calendar for years 1900 thru 2060. The program is GUI based and runs on Win9x / WinXP / NT platforms. It can be used as an educational tool. 

Version 7.00 onwards, LunarCal is distributed in 2 executables - a normal and a Unicode based program. The only difference is the ability to select Unicode fonts and have a nicer display with Chinese characters.

An online User's Guide is available. Please read the Users Guide. If you intend to run the Unicode version of LunarCal with nice fonts you should read the section on Fonts.

Please read the for changes.

Acknowledgements:
The original pictures of the Moon were taken from NASA web site. Thanks to NASA.

Disclaimer:
This program is provided on an "as-is" and "use-at-own-risk" basis. No other warranties, implied or expressed with regards to the fitness of the program for any particular purpose is given.

Download:
Conditions:
You are expressly forbidden to distribute or make LunarCal available for downloading (directly or indirectly) from anywhere. I would prefer all users download the program directly from this site so that they will always get latest version. You may provide a URL link to http://lunarcal.org. Please do NOT link directly to this or any specific page(s) as it is subject to change. Link only to the main URL above.

The program works best on 800x600 at 256 colors or true/Hi color mode. If you run at 1024x768 then you should use large fonts setting on your desktop. Certain screen may appear less attractive when viewed on 640x480 resolutions screens.

Full Version with Self Install:
Please read the Version page for bugs report and enhancements to the program. The program and libraries are installed in C:\Program Files\LunarCal directory by default. All required files & libraries are placed into that folder.

Please note the program only runs on Windows - Win9x WinNT Win2K WinXP WinVista:-

Download LunarCal.Exe ver 7.34 (executable installer version approx. 600kb). This is a self-installing program.

I am not sure why some of you have problems downloading or are unable to extract or execute the downloaded files. I have provided MD5 checksum to allow you to verify that the file has been properly downloaded. You will of course need to have an MD5 utility program. There are many free MD5 programs available. I am using RapidCRC an open source MD5  program which I find easy to use.

The MD5 Checksum for the current install program is:-

After installing the above EXE file or unzipping the ZIP file above, you will get an additional LunarCal.md5 which is a text file containing the MD5 checksums for the executables.

There is a very simple command line version MD5 checksum program available at http://www.fourmilab.ch/md5/md5.zip

Please note that some programs uses all uppercase and gives checksums such as "BB3977...." instead of above "bb3977..." This is ok. 

If all the above MD5 check sum agrees, then you are in luck. Otherwise download again or use another PC / download software.

What is MD5? - http://www.rsasecurity.com/

 Accuracy of LunarCal
LunarCal has been checked against US Naval Observatory (USNO) web site and is found to be accurate (on average) to within 1 degree (latitude & longitude) or 1 minute (times). This is because LunarCal does not use very high precision orbital parameters which makes the program very large and more complicated.

The precision used does not affect the accuracy of the LunarCal  at all. The Chinese Lunar Calendar enumerated by LunarCal is still very accurate and this has been checked against the publication "五 年历书 1561 - 2060" (ISBN 7-5029-0899-4) for years 1900 thru 2060 for Chinese New Years, Intercalary months and dates of Principal and Sectional Terms. No checks were conducted against years earlier than 1900 since the Chinese uses the Mean Sun rather than the True Sun for calculations. (Note: there are typos in that publication depending on the edition.).

You may wish to confirm specific dates, times and moon parameters by visiting USNO Data Services at:

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/

or in case the specific page has moved:

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/  (base page, then choose Data Services)

If you wish to validate LunarCal against USNO, then it is best to verify the dates and times of occurrence of Winter Solstices and New Moons (particularly for the year you are interested in). These are the two primary parameters used in the enumeration of the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Moon rise and set times as displayed by LunarCal is icing on the cake and I don't place too much emphasis on them.

Do not compare LunarCal with USNO's "What the Moon Looks Like Today" or Synthetic Picture of the Moon as LunarCal displays the Moon oriented for observers Zenith (north) so that you can see the Moon in the sky as it should be, whereas USNO's picture is oriented Celestial North up.

LunarCal for Linux?
There is a free program called Wine. It emulates Windows on a Linux OS. It is claimed to be able to run many Win programs including Office, etc. You may wish to try it out if you are using  Linux. (http://www.winehq.org) There are a lot of people (including myself) who have not been able to get a proper install out of that beast. I have no idea if LunarCal will run on it as I have been unable to try it out. If you able to get it to run I shall be happy to hear from you. Maybe you can share your setup parameters with other users. more

How to uninstall LunarCal
To uninstall LunarCal, run the uninstall from the Start Menu. You can install a new version directly on top of the old version. Your old Location.db will be renamed as LocationSAVE.db.

Please read the online User's Guide prior to running the program.