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INDI Library v2.0.7 is Released (01 Apr 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Why is the UTC time in KStars/Ekos different from my mount?

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Mine turned out to be KStars had the DST rules for my geographic location incorrect, I just made a copy of my location and put -5 hrs instead of -6 that was the rule in KStars. Fixed the issue.
3 years 6 months ago #61160

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It's pulling the location from the mount, and clearing out the location settings I manually put into KStars.
3 years 6 months ago #61161

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Maybe open a new topic here describing the issue for your location so it can be fixed? I did the same for my location a few months ago and Jasem fixed it right away.
Last edit: 3 years 6 months ago by Wouter van Reeven.
3 years 6 months ago #61162

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What's the rule that requires fixing?
3 years 6 months ago #61163

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Mine was McAllen, Texas USA - Central US time zone.
3 years 6 months ago #61164

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What I discovered through my own trial and error is that the only things that sync from the mount to KStars is the actual UTC time (with no offset and no DST setting), and your GPS coordinates. It appears KStars then knows based on your location what offset and DST to apply to your current location and then corrects the time.

This means that if I plug in DST settings into the mount, KStars doesn't know that there is a DST set, because it thinks it's only getting the UTC time, and it offsets the time by DTC even though you've already done it in the mount now making KStars have the wrong time by one hour.

I don't know if this is driver dependent or not. But that seems to be the way the 10Micron driver works. It could be different for other mounts.
3 years 6 months ago #61167

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The rule is correct for McAllen. It's -5 now, and in the database it's -6 (RAW without DST correction). So mount should report -5 which is sent to Ekos. Ekos checks DST is on and subtracts 1, so we're back to -6 which is set as the RAW uncorrected offset (TZ0).

Andrew, so 10Micron uses LX200 and it queries <strong>Local</strong> date and time, then using the offset received from the mount, it generates the UTC time. If you turn off auto connect in your equipment profile, this allows logging to be enabled before connection to the mount is established. Then connect by pressing "Connect" and then the log should show what time/offset are received from the mount itself. The log you attached doesn't show this info yet.
Last edit: 3 years 6 months ago by Jasem Mutlaq.
3 years 6 months ago #61169

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Ok, I will check my mount, and make sure the DST is set to off.

I recently did a firmware update to my mount, maybe it set it to on.
Thanks for your hard work on all this, (I see you guys are doing lots of changes on invent.kde.org, lots of great stuff happening!)
3 years 6 months ago #61170

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Interesting, I would have never figured that out. When I put all the correct information into my mount, UTC offset -6 for Central Time (Houston Texas). Currently observing DST (DST On). KStars somehow is off by 1 hour. So I have to turn DST off on the mount, then Kstars displays the correct time. So maybe Kstars is adjusting for DST itself?
3 years 6 months ago #61171

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I should have mentioned too, that I don't auto connect. So the log should show the time. Just search for UTC, and you'll find where it gets the time from the mount. I thought I quoted the relevant line in that post with the log unless that was something else.
3 years 6 months ago #61172

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If DST is observed, the offset from the mount should be -5. It should say -5 in INDI Control Panel.
3 years 6 months ago #61173

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Yes, this seemed obvious to me. But that's not what it's doing. The mount Offset is -6. That's one setting. Then there's a separate DST setting to Yes or No.

When DST is set to Yes, he mount's clock represents this correctly. But the offset in the mount is still -6.

So the internal mount clock is only for display purposes in the hand controller. And the mount information is not determined by that, but by the actual UTC time (it says this in the manual). So I have to operate the mount with incorrect settings (no DST), and the hand controller shows the wrong time, but EKOS now has the right time.
Last edit: 3 years 6 months ago by Andrew Burwell.
3 years 6 months ago #61174

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