en-faq

Frequently asked question

My program did not start at the right time, what's the problem ?
Sciatrope calculates the eclipse circumstances in "ephemides time", which is offset from UTC by a time offset called "Delta T".
This means that:

• first, your computer time shall be perfectly set, or Sciatrope locked to a GPS receiver.
• then you should adjust the value of delta T, in the eclipse elements, to the most recently estimated value of delta T for the eclipse day (Refined delta T estimations can be found at http://maia.usno.navy.mil/). This can be saved in your Sciatrope document.
• still, the calculated circumstances are accurate to one or two seconds, take that into account when preparing your eclipse scenario.

Do I need to enter the UTC time in my computer time ?
No, you shall precisely synchronise your computer time with your time zone time. Your Macintosh will internally convert this time to UTC by taking the time zone into account.
Of course, this means that the time zone of your computer and the time zone of the time you enter shall be the same. Otherwise, correct the time to the computer time zone.
No worries, all this is automatically handled by macOS if the option "Set date and time automatically" is checked in your "Date and Time" preferences, and your Macintosh has recently been connected to the Internet.

** Sciatrope doesn't take my location into account **
You need to allow Sciatrope to use the macOS location services.
Open the system preferences, go to the security tab, select the location service, and check Sciatrope in order to allow it to get your location.

You can stop using the Macintosh location services from inside the application, in the map tab.