Time & Date - how to correct time related issues

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    Starry Night time (and date) is based on your computer operating system time. The two must be set correctly, and in sync. An error in either will result in a Starry Night error in calculation. For the moment, let us assume your operating system clock is set correctly. So, lets look at Starry Night.

    If you go to File--->Set Home Location--->and then look at the "Map" tab, you will probably see that there is a little red "X" (which represents your location on the global map) somewhere in middle of the Atlantic Ocean or India or somewhere else. The little red "X" needs to be where you are actually located (as a timezone). It doesn't have to be on your exact city, but in the same general vicinity. Once the "X" has been located properly, your Starry Night time should read correctly. Please have a look at this, and let me know whether this resolves the issue for you.

    Comments

    • Avatar
      Bobbi Beauchamp

      I have completed the above and the date/time are still wrong.  Computer's date and time are correct.

    • Avatar
      Stephen Boeker

      Ditto to Bobbie above.  I can see that the "red X" was in the vicinity but a little west of Baton Rouge, maybe closer to the Texas border.  I found that I could click on it and move it as I wished.  Since west of my location would give the opposite remedy desired, I moved the "red X" to the east side of Louisiana in the direction that would spin the clock back in time.  Nothing happened.  I need it to read 2 hours earlier.  Would you like me to put the "red X" in the middle of the Atlantic??  Please help me.

    • Avatar
      Stephen Boeker

      Doesn't matter where I move the "red X" as the hours or clock stay the same.  BTW, when I did move the "red X" , my home location changed to Gulfport, Miss. United States, which is the same Central Time Zone as I and the clock still did not change.  I moved it to the middle of the Atlantic and the clock still did not change.

      I am needing to have my purchased copy of SNP working as I am trying to track Comet ISON to take images as soon as my little refractor can accomplish this.  I believe the time is coming and will be here by the middle of Oct.

      Please help me now,

      Stephen Boeker

      Baton Rouge, Louisiana

      (225) 421-0444

    • Avatar
      David Dixon

      Hi,

      Where I am:

      Today sun sets at 15:42

      Dusk is 16:30

      SNP 6.4.3 on Win7 at 17:20 depicts sun set as shown in the attached screenshot

      Looking out my window at 17:20 it is pitch dark and has been for over an hour.

      You'll note in the picture that the OS time and SNP time are the same.

      Also the shadow on the map page is well west of the red circle which is located in Central Scotland GMT 0

      Appreciate if you could explain what I need to do to get this apparent anomaly rectified?

      Many thanks 

      Dave




      SNP Time Issue.jpg
    • Avatar
      Stuart Honour

      I was going to ask if other users facing this problem are running SNP on a Mac but David above seems to have the issue on a PC as well. I know if I BootCamp my Mac then the Windows time is incorrect (possibly because of an EFI time setting?) so could SNP be using the EFI (system) time instead of the OS time? Could there not be a way to implement an option to set time zone manually, rather than the map option?

    • Avatar
      Keiron Smith

      Hello,

      Starry Night time is based on your computer operating system time. The two must be set correctly, and in sync. An error in either will result in a Starry Night error in calculation. For the moment, let us assume your operating system clock is set correctly. So, lets look at Starry Night.

      If you go to File--->Set Home Location--->and then look at the "Map" tab, you will probably see that there is a little red "X" (which represents your location on the global map) somewhere in middle of the Atlantic Ocean or India or somewhere else. The little red "X" needs to be where you are actually located (as a timezone). It doesn't have to be on your exact city, but in the same general vicinity. Once the "X" has been located properly, your Starry Night time should read correctly. Please have a look at this, and let me know whether this resolves the issue for you.

      In Starry Night please check the following:

      1. Go to File ---> Set Home Location ---> Choose your city from the "List" tab or by entering your zip code on the "Zip/Postal Code" tab.
      2. Go to the Map tab and make sure the X is position in the general vicinity. So long as the X is positioned just about right, that ok.
      3. Go to the "Latitude/Longitude" tab and confirm that your "Time Zone" is set correctly. Check the option for "Automatic".
      4. Go to the "Latitude/Longitude" tab and confirm that DST is set correctly.
      5. Go to the Starry Night Time & Date functions (top-left of application window) and makes sure that DST is set correctly.

      On your computer please do the following:

      1. Go to your operating system clock and choose the option to make changes.
      2. Confirm that you are, in fact, correctly set for your time zone.
      3. Confirm the clock time & date are correct.

      ***If all of the above are true it is not possible for Starry Night to give you an incorrect time.***

      So, please spend a few minutes going over all the details above and verify that everything is set up correctly. If Starry Night is not giving you the correct time then something in the list above in not set properly.

    • Avatar
      Nancy Tribley

      OK, I was having the same problem as those who were showing the incorrect time despite having the computer set correctly, and everything was showing correctly on the "Set Home Location" screen as well. For the heck of it, I chose a place on the list nearby, in my case, Philadelphia, PA, chose that as my home location. It worked. I then went back, put in my exact location via zipcode, and voila. Don't know what the glitch is all about, but this worked.

    • Avatar
      Sophie Cheng

      Hello Nancy,

      Glad to hear that fixed the time for you! Thank you for sharing that information here! 

      Best,

      Sophie

    • Avatar
      Derek Mellen

      I finally found the reason why people have the incorrect time when they choose their location with the zipcode and maybe others.  The Time Zone is not being set.  If you have a Windows computer I can tell you how to fix the time zone.  The file that has your location and time zone information is located at:

      C:\Users\YOUR_ACCOUNT\AppData\Local\Simulation Curriculum\Starry Night Prefs\Locations\Earth-E.txt

      Replace YOUR_ACCOUNT with your user account for windows.

      Then use a text editor to change the number for your time zone. The number after the Longitude GPS coordinates is the GMT time zone offset.  In the example below it is 4.0 which is Eastern Time Zone offset from GMT. When I looked at the file it was set to 1.0 no matter what I choose in Starry Night.  Change that number to whatever your Time Zone offset is from GMT.  West of GMT is positive numbers and East of GMT is negative numbers.

      Sunrise USA 26.11430000 -80.36990000 4.0 FL City 0

      I did a fresh install of Starry Night Pro Plus 7 and updated to the newest version 7.5.0.951 before I entered my location.  Simulation Curriculum could fix the zipcode database to include the offset to GMT.  I looked at the file that contains all the zipcodes that Starry Night uses for United States and none had a GMT offset.  If you select your zipcode then save your location you will have the hours off GMT set to 1.0.

    • Avatar
      john fisher

      I just reinstalled starry night 7 pro plus. Im having the same old time sync problems. I created a custom home location, put in the lat /long and moved the map x to my time zone. I entered a name and saved. But when I hit the home button ,the time is wrong with the map red x moving back to europe. What gives this is really frustrating

    • Avatar
      john fisher

      Another issue.. I plugged in all my peripherals into a usb hub and windows 10 recognizes them all , however when I connect my nexstar hand controler to the hub, starry night does not recognize the port. A dialog box came up saying com 5 not recognized.

    • Avatar
      Yguppy

      I just figured out how to fix this. You need to go into your computer settings and set it to automatically set the time and not the manual time set. I had mine set to manual and the time was off on Starry Night. I set it to auto-set the time and it fixed it in Starry Night. I hope this helps, it helped me.