Frequently asked questions

How accurate is the Solar time and the 3D model?

The actual Solar time is reasonably accurate, but the time may differ slightly from other Solar time calculations.  The following link contains the equations used to calculate the time: https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/solareqns.PDF .

Most germane parts of the 3D model are reasonably accurate, but no guarantee is given as to the exact accuracy.

The distance between the Sun and the Earth is obviously not realistic and has been greatly foreshortened for visual effect.

The orbit of the Earth around the Sun is pretty much well understood and a complete orbit will take 365.256 days.

The phase of the moon will become increasingly inaccurate over time.  The current phase is based on the new moon on 3rd September 2024 and assumes a complete orbit of the Earth is completed every 29.5305869 days.  Also, the orbit of the moon is on the ecliptic plane and does not include any orbital inclination.  This may be added in a future version.

For more information on the complexities of predicting celestial movements, then you may like to read up on the three-body problem.

Why doesn't the location marker line up with the Solar time?

This is all to do with the tilt of the Earth and that the clock dial is on the ecliptic plane.

If you change the settings to not apply the tilt of the Earth then the location marker will align perfectly with the Solar time hand of the clock.  Alternatively, you can change the camera angle to look down on the Earth directly through its axis of rotation (you can use the pole marker settings option to make this slightly easier).  From this angle, the location marker will miraculously come into alignment with the Solar time hand on the clock.

The app is running slow.  Why is that?

The first version of the app is primarily all about functionality.  And while there is definitely room for improvement when it comes to performance, at the end of the day, the app is working very hard and doing quite a lot of computations behind the scenes.  

The app has been developed with later models of devices in mind and will work much better on devices that have more capabilities, such as faster CPU and more memory.

Future versions will attempt to improve the performance, but there are a few steps that can be taken by the user to improve the overall performance.

• Disable the animated clouds.

• Reduce the resolution of the 3D model rendering using the settings.

• Reduce the number of cities loaded at any one time.  There is a maximum limit of 3 locations allowed, but your device may perform better with even less.

• If you just want the digital clock, remove all of the elements in the 3D model using the settings.