Golden Hour

Auto generated reminder

Inspiration

As a photographer, I love taking sunset photos, especially on days where the sky is absolutely extraordinary. The best of these photos are generally taken within a roughly 30 minute window prior to sunset. However, more often than not, I get distracted by other means (e.g. schoolwork/studying, cooking, etc.) and miss this window.

What it does

Automatically generates a reminder approximately an hour before sunset. No inputs are required beyond the city/state.

How I built it

I utilized python to gather the relevant data from Yahoo Weather via their developer API. I then used various dates and timer libraries to auto generate a reminder for 30 minutes prior to the start of the 30 minute "Golden Hour" window.

Challenges I ran into

Dealing with various data types (datetime, time, strings, etc.)

What's next for Golden Hour

Setting it up so that it will repeat this the automated reminder generator on it's own every day (until you stop it)
Monitoring how much of a footprint this script will have on the computer and finding ways to make it more efficient
Calculating more exact times for "Golden Hour" with latitude/longitude and the sun's altitude rather than just estimating the window at 30 minutes
Incorporate more options for better personalization (e.g. earlier reminders, sunrise golden hour reminders, etc.)
Expand so that this can run on other operating systems as well (e.g. Mobile-iOS/Android, and Windows)