What are the day and night fluctuations for a moon orbiting a planet the size of Jupiter?

In a nutshell, I'm trying to build a world with erratic day/night cycles.

To get the erratic days, I'm working with a habitable moon. It takes 3 full earth days (72 hours) for the habitable moon to rotate around the planet. 1.5 of those days (36 hours) are spent in the light, while another 1.5 (36 hours) is on the shadow side of the planet. However, the moon itself also rotates, though at this moment I am unsure at what speed. I'm thinking a full rotation would be between 20-36 hours, but I'm up for as much or little as needed if it helps with the warmth issue. Almost certainly the daylight and dark hours would be variable, aside from a periodic somewhat longer dark time behind the planet.

The planet would have a constant haze in the sky (it's a very basic life form that lives in the cloud layers of the atmosphere, kinda reddish in color--simple like a spore or plankton or other small thing).

A possible wild card is that another moon also orbits this planet, which is visible every 7 days to the habitable moon. Eclipses may be a thing, though I'm happy to place it in an orbit where that is rare, or never happens.

The planet itself is Jupiter-like, at least in size, though composition is up in the air. I have not figured out the orbiting time of this planet around the sun because I didn't think it was that important, but if it is I'm happy to let anyone play with those numbers freely.

I genuinely need help figuring out day/night fluctuations. I admit it, I'm not so hot with the maths. Can someone help with that, even a simple base pattern? I'm not married to day lengths (I was basing it loosely on Jupiter and a couple of it's moons) so whatever is easiest is fine, just let me know the new day lengths.

posted almost 6 years ago

Firelocke‭

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