Astrolog: The Next Version
Astrolog 7.40 was released at this site on March 31, 2022. The next version
is under development. :-)
- What it is: You display a chart for "now", either by
looking at the default chart that comes up in the Windows version, or by using
the -n command switch, and the result is that the "now" chart is
always off by a few hours, in both displayed time as well as in planet positions. (And it's still off even when you've made sure Astrolog's default time zone setting is correct and have double checked your
system time.)
- The correction (short version): Open your "astrolog.as"
default settings file (in your Astrolog install directory) in a text editor. Go
to line 7, and change the line "-Yz 0" by replacing the "0"
with the number of minutes the "now" chart is off by. For example, if
the "now" chart always seems to be two hours ahead, change it to
"-Yz -120" (minus the quotes of course).
- The correction (long version): The problem is simply due to Astrolog
thinking the current time on your machine is different from what you think it
is. The problem isn't a bug or inaccuracy on Astrolog's part, as once it gets a
time, it casts the chart for that time perfectly. It's just a matter of getting
the right time in the first place. The way Astrolog gets its "now"
time, is that first it queries your system for its local time. Then it
translates that local time to UTC/GMT, by querying your system for what time zone
your system time is in. Once the UTC time is obtained, and the chart is cast,
the UTC time is translated back into your local time using Astrolog's default
time zone, and that time is displayed as the time for the chart. The system
time zone and Astrolog's default time zone are two different things, so if
they're different, then the result of the "now" time and your system
time differing happens. Note that Astrolog's default time zone only affects how
"now" times are displayed in the program, which means changing it won't affect
the absolute "now" time or cause planets to move. The case for most
people is they don't have any system time zone variable set, so Astrolog always
thinks their local time is in UTC or Pacific time. The most correct fix is to
set your TZ environment variable, so your machine has a correct system time
zone setting. See the documentation for the -n command switch for how to do
this. The alternative way is to just give Astrolog a correction factor of some
amount of time to add to all its "now" charts, using the -Yz switch
described above. See the documentation for the -Yz switch for more details.
- Note: This shouldn't ever be a problem on modern Windows systems.
Windows Astrolog gets the correct current time (and whether Daylight Time is in effect)
from Windows, and will accurately have planet positions reflect that time. (You
still need to set the default time zone in which you want times to be expressed
though, in the "Info / Default Chart Info" dialog.) However, this issue may
occasionally appear on non-Windows versions of Astrolog that are compiled
manually.
Have you found a bug in Astrolog? Tell me!
This site produced by Walter D. Pullen
(see my homepage), hosted on Magitech and astrolog.org, created using Microsoft FrontPage, page last updated
April 21, 2022.