We Fixed the Milky Way Calendar — February Wasn't Lying, Our Math Was
The annual Milky Way calendar was showing zero visibility for winter months. We fixed it; February and January now show accurate galactic core visibility ratings.
Malcolm reached out today to point out something that didn't look right on the annual Milky Way calendar. February was showing as completely gray — zero visibility — for Albuquerque. But the galactic core actually starts rising in late February at that latitude. Malcolm was right. The calendar was wrong.
What Happened
The annual Milky Way calendar grid, in both the free shared version and the premium dashboard view, used a seasonal shortcut to calculate visibility ratings. The logic basically said: if it's not March through October, visibility is zero. That works for the middle of the year, but it throws away real visibility windows at the edges of the season. February in Albuquerque. January at southern latitudes. The annual view simply ignored those.
The monthly detail view was already doing this correctly. It uses real astronomical calculations to figure out when the galactic core is actually above the horizon based on your latitude, the sun's position, and the moon's phase. Click February in the monthly view to see rated days. But the annual grid that's supposed to give you the overview? Gray. Nothing. The two views told different stories, and the annual view was incorrect.
What We Fixed
We replaced the shortcut with the same calculations used in the monthly view. The annual grid now shows colored, rated days in February (and January, where applicable) that match the monthly detail exactly.
In short, the annual overview misrepresented the winter months. Now it tells the truth.
The fix is live. Pull up any location ayou should see visibility data in the months that were previously blank.
Thanks to Malcolm for flagging this. If you notice something that looks off on the planner, let us know. We'd rather hear about it and fix it than have people planning around bad data
