Assignment 508: Daylight Hours project
Collect data on daylight
and create a chart for your data
1. Collect and chart sunrise and sunset times for your assigned city over a one year period --the first day of the month from
2011. See at the end your assigned city.
Fortunately, the U.S. Naval Observatory has a web site where you can get the sunrise and sunset times so you don't
have to wait a year to collect the information: http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications.
Under Data Services, use the Table of Sunrise/Sunset, Moonrise/Moonset, or Twilight Times for an Entire
Year. Since you want the data from June 1, 2010 through June 1, 2011, you will have to do both years (2010 and
2011).
2. Open an Excel spreadsheet and label your columns
Dates Sunrise Sunset Daylight
3. Using the data from the Web site, record the sunrise and sunset data for the first day of each month for one year
starting with June 1 for your assigned city. You will get the data for sunrise and sunset from this portion of the
U.S. Naval Observatory web page.
Below are the data for Honolulu, Hawaii for 2011. Highlighted in red are the sunrise and sunset times for the first
day of January through June 2011. For April 1, for example, sunrise will be at 06:25 (6:25 a.m.) and sunset, at
1846 (6:46 p.m.).
Please Note:
4. When entering the time, be sure to use this format: 7:05 AM, 5:08 PM. To do this, (1) highlight the cells
that will contain the sunrise and sunset times, (2) click on the little Number button, (3) under Number,
select Custom, and then (4) select h:mm:ss AM/PM for the Sunrise and Sunset columns and h:mm for
the Daylight column.
5. To calculate hours of daylight (your Daylight column-column D), for the first entry (cell D2), enter the
formula = C2-B2, which is simply the sunset time minus the sunrise time, and drag down the formula.
6. Create a bar chart of the daylight column (column D) when you have finished entering the data.
A. Highlight the data in column D
B. Click the Insert tab, then Column Chart and pick one of the column options
C. Then on the Layout tab, click Chart Title, which will name Hours of Daylight in <your
assigned city>. The click on the Axis Titles button and name your vertical axis Amount of
Daylight and name the horizontal axis First Day of the Month.
7. Put your name under the data columns and save your spreadsheet as yourlastnameDAYLIGHT.
Assigned Cities:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Rockford, IL
Los Angeles, CA
Dallas, TX
Las Vegas, NV
St. Louis, MO
Chicago, IL
Philadelphia, PA
Miami, FL
New York City, NY
Washington, D.C.
Juno, AK
Orlando, FL
Tucson, AZ
Reno, NV
Atka, AK
Eastport, ME
Green Bay, WI
Kihei, HI
St. Paul, MN
New Orleans, LA
Sicily, AK
San Francisco, CA
Austin, TX
Mesa, AZ
Springfield, IL
Memphis, TN
Providence, RI
Scottsdale, AZ
Seattle, WA
Washington, D.C.
Nogales, AZ
Caribou, ME
Brazil, IN
Egypt, IL
Branson, MO
Maia, American Samoa