SAO Calendar is a multi-purpose astronomy calendar that lists major astronomical events (phases of Moon, eclipses, transits and other phenomena), and includes important dates about the Swinburne Astronomy Online (SAO) teaching semesters.

The SAO Calendar Monthly image is selected from images supplied by SAO students. Background information on each image can be found by following the link to the SAO Image Gallery.

There are eight icons and hyperlinks at the top, right of the Calendar giving latest images of the Sun (2), Moon (artificial), night sky, and four views of Earth from geosynchronous satellites. By clicking on the icon a new window will appear showing the latest image. By clicking on the bottom link a new window will appear describing the instrument/telescope/satellite used.

The first Latest Solar Image is courtesy of the SOHO satellite Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT). The image is taken at 304 Angstroms and shows the solar surface structure at a temperature of 60,000 to 80,000 degrees Kelvin. Time shown is UT (Universal Time) and Solar North is up. The "SOHO EIT" link gives background information about the instrument.

The second Latest Solar Image is courtesy of the National Solar Observatory, New Mexico and the ISOON telescope. The image is taken at 630.3 nanometres (continuum) with Solar North at top. The "NSO" link gives background information about ISOON. Image credit: National Solar Observatory/AURA/NSF.

The Latest Lunar Image is courtesy of the US Naval Observatory and is a synthetic image of the Moon as it would be seen from the Earth at the date and time indicated (Universal Time). North is up, East is to the left. The "USNO" link gives background information about the image.

Night Sky provides a link to the Night Sky Live home page. Ten observatories can be selected giving fish-eye (visible light) views of the night sky. Star and planets are identified in each image and movies of the latest images can be played.

GEOS satellites are in geosynchronous orbits which allow them to remain stationary over one part of the Earth. These are the latest visible light images from GEOS-East (Americas) and West (Pacific Ocean) satellites and are courtesy of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The link to GEOS gives background information about the images.

EUMETSAT images show artifically coloured images from Meteosat-5 (Indian Ocean) and Meteosat-7 (Atlantic Ocean). The icons are courtesy of EUMETSAT - Copyright 2005 EUMETSAT. The link to EUMETSAT gives background information about the images.

SAO Calendar has been developed by Paul Bourke, Alfred Lagos and Glen Mackie.