Seasonal lighting

[Sezdawg]

So I've had this idea/dream for awhile to make my little guys lighting as realistic as possible. (Washington state just doesn't afford the opportunity for much real outside time) Basically having his enclosure light come one when the sun comes up and go off when the sun goes down. This goes beyond setting a timer, the time the light is on would change daily with the sunrise and sunset times (automatically). Does this technology exist already? I haven't down much research into it yet. It would be like I nightlight sensor just in reverse.

 

[jaizei]

How advanced do you want to get? There are controllers that could probably accomplish something similar to what you want but they can be expensive. The cheap solution would be like you said: a photocell in reverse. A 'standard' photocell controlling a relay would probably be easiest.

 

[Sezdawg]

I'm thinking just a light sensor is all I need, but I'm really kind of having trouble finding don't that works in reverse from a night light. And I'm not much of an electronics genius haha