Predicting Manhattanhenge

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Manhattanhenge, the 2 days in the year when the sun sets in the alignment of New York streets (thank you city grid design).

It’s awesome to see so many pictures like this popping up on flickr and instagram because this way I also get to confirm my little app Sunsetter is actually giving correct results:

Note: the app is configured to predict when the sun’s lower limb touches the horizon, not the civil sunset when the sun completely disappears behind the horizon, as this makes for a better picture.

Tokyo is not an easy city to take such pictures but so many cities in the US have the potential. For example, I’m hoping to see many pics from San Francisco on September 24^th.