See View Time |
| The master clock here at See View
uses the 60 kHz signal transmitted from Rugby, which broadcasts the
national time standard for the UK. This clock is kept in the living room of the bungalow.
A second identical clock for use in the observatory building provides the timings
for all manual astronomical observations. These clocks maintain absolute accuracy by automatically synchronizing to the time signal every two hours. Our tests have shown that, in the absence of the time signal both these clocks maintain an accuracy of +/- 1 second per week (temperature >15C <25C). For more details on the national time standard for the UK, see the National Physics Laboratory website NPL time At our observatory in common with many others most of our astronomical and weather instruments are (or will be) at least partly automated, under computer control. This places demands on the system clock for an unusually high degree of accuracy. It should be no surprise to anyone who regularly checks the clock on their computer screen that these clocks are not very accurate. In recognition of this, a large number of time servers have appeared, in recent years. These time servers enable anyone with the correct software installed and access to the internet to synchronize their system clock to a national time standard. We tested many software packages (some of them free), with varying degrees of success before settling on one that suited us, our advise to anyone else is to do the same. We found that some software packages regularly gave errors of five seconds or more and what is worse produced a different error each time they logged on. We are currently using a program called WorldTime to automatically synchronize our system clocks every 60 minutes. So far we have not found any errors (checking to the nearest second) using this system. To find out more about this service, plus a host of other information on time visit the Worldtime website. Other
SVO sites |