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Table of Contents
Sunclock Concept
Zodiac ( NEW )
Spiral Clock
Google TV and Chromecast
Digital Clock
Moon
Widget
Wallpaper
Location and Time Zone
Culture and Religion
For Photographers
Azimuthal Equidistant Projection of the Earth (aka Flat Earth)
Compass
Preferences
Preference Options Menu
Sunclock Home Page sunclock.ch
Check out our Instagram and share your clock screenshots! We’ll feature our favorites. |
Sunclock Concept
Sunclock is a classic analog clock with a 12-hour dial and hour and minute hands.Sunclock becomes an astronomical clock when an astronomical dial is added. It has a scale from 0 to 24 and is divided into a day and night section. It rotates once a day because we want to reuse the hour hand from the 12-hour dial on the 24-hour dial. The ratio of the sections changes with the seasons, similar to the changes in the length of day and night. Day is separated from night by twilight. Civil twilight is the time when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. The nautical twilight is 12 degrees and the astronomical twilight is 18 degrees.
12-hour dial | 24-hour dial with day/night sectors |
When the two dials are combined, we get a unique 24-hour clock with the normal hour hand angle of a classic 12-hour dial. The hour hand is still horizontal at three o'clock and nine o'clock and vertical at six and twelve o'clock. The 12-hour hand rotates twice per day and the 24-hour hand rotates once per day. As a result, the hour hand shows the time on both dials.
It is 8 past 10 at night | It is 8 past 10 at day |
Sunclock can also display the time on a classic 24-hour dial. The 24-hour dial is turned 30 minutes because the real noon shall be displayed vertically on top. It is also twisted by an hour because of daylight saving time. | The Northern, Southern and both Hemispheres can be shown with sun symbol, analemma (equation of time), users location and latitude. |
By dragging over the application, the time and date can be simulated for any time of day and any day of the year. The top half of the screen is reserved for the time simulation and the bottom half for the date simulation. Press the stop button "X" to stop the animation and return to the normal time and date display.
This button starts an automatic animation. It changes time (first tap) or change date (second tap) or stops the animation (third tap).
Sunclock can be used as a desktop or wall clock, and can display the time continuously in full-screen mode. In this case there is a back button in the upper left corner of the screen. After a short time it will become transparent. You can still touch it to exit full screen mode. When the phone or tablet is connected to a charger, the light does not turn off.
Zodiac ( NEW )
The zodiac signs are the twelve equal sections of the ecliptic—the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the Sun’s apparent annual path across the celestial sphere. The pink sun symbol (☉) indicates the Sun’s current position within the zodiac.
Summer Evening in Cancer At eight o'clock in summer, the sun remains above the horizon, positioned in the Cancer constellation, resulting in extended daylight and a warm twilight. |
Winter Evening in Capricorn At eight o'clock in winter, the sun is below the horizon, positioned in the Capricorn constellation, leading to shorter days and early darkness. |
Spiral Clock
The Spiral Clock gets its name from the four-part spiral. It is divided into day, night, dawn and dusk. The jump back from the inner to the outer curve does not occur at the civil middle of the 12 noon or midnight, but at the astronomical middle of the night. This is halfway between between sunset and sunrise. The hour hand changes its length so that its tip is always on the spiral. A special minute ring has a 15-minute graduation, so that the time on the dial can be read with an accuracy of about five minutes by means of the small arrows on the dial.Eight o'clock in the summer. It is already day. | Eight o'clock in the winter. It's still night. |
Google TV and Chromecast
From August 2024, Sunclock offers an exciting new feature - compatibility with Google TV and Google Chromecast. You can turn your TV's home screen into a dynamic Sunclock, create custom clocks during commercial breaks, or simply indulge your creativity while you watch. For an even more immersive experience, use a Chromecast-connected projector to display Sunclock on your wall. | |
Digital Clock
Purists wanted a Sunclock that was reduced to a numerical display like a digital clock. Only the beginning of dusk, sunrise, solar noon, sunset and the end of dusk are displayed digitally. This is the perfect clock according to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "Perfection is not achieved when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be omitted."Classic seven-segment display. | Modern sans serif font. |
Moon
The moon in Sunclock can be visualized in three different ways.- The well-known moon phase shows what the moon looks like.
- The moon circular arc shows when the moon rises and sets (similar to sunrise and sunset times)
- The moon culmination spheres shows the time when the moon is at its highest point. At the same time, the sun culmination is shown. The combination of both show the moon phase in a new way.
New Moon four days ago | First Quarter | Full Moon four days from now |
(update) We generally observe the same moon phases around the same time, though the orientation differs by hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the moon waxes from right to left, while in the Southern Hemisphere, it waxes from left to right. |
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Northern hemisphere view |
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Southern hemisphere view |
Widget
Two widgets can be placed on the home screen, one for your home location and one for your international location.Home Widget and Abroad Widget | Example gallery widget with moon and golden hour |
To add a clock widget:
Go to Home screen -> Tap and hold any empty space -> Select "Widgets" -> Find and tap on one of the "Sunclock" versions abroad or home -> Tap and hold the widget -> Drag the widget to a preferred position on the Home screen.
You can scale the widget by long-clicking and dragging the handles.
The second hand cannot be displayed in the widget. This is because widgets cannot be updated every second (Android limitation).
If widget doesn't update properly try to turn off battery optimization: Applications and notifications - Special application access - Battery optimization, Drop down menu: not optimized -> all apps, find "Sunclock", select "not optimized". In Sunclock Preferences / Function / Widget you will find a button that takes you directly to the to the "Power saving exceptions" screen from the phone. Make sure that Sunclock is shown in the list of exceptions. This way, Sunclock is allowed to run every minute to update the clock. Some vendors add additional power saving features. For Samsung phones you can find a helpful article here which describes in chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5 how to keep the Sunclock widget running: Top 8 Fixes for Samsung Phone...
Wallpaper
You can set Sunclock as your home screen and lock screen wallpaper.Sunclock displayed on the lock screen | Sunclock as home screen background |
Sunclock is a so-called active wallpaper. Such a wallpaper can be used for the Home screen or for the Home screen and the Lock screen. You cannot use it for the lock screen without using it for the home screen. (Android limitation)
To set Sunclock as your desktop background:
1.: Start Sunclock, select options (three dots at the right top), select "Set Wallpaper"
or
2.: Go to the home screen -> tap and hold on an empty space -> select "Wallpapers" -> find and tap on "Sunclock" -> tap "Set Wallpaper".
A few words about the second hand in the wallpaper: The second hand can be shown in the wallpaper if you want. Even a "linear" second hand that updates every 16 milliseconds (60 times per second!) can be displayed. Such a second hand is not recommended for the wallpaper, as the large number of redrawings may consume too much power.
Location and Time Zone
Sunclock needs location and time zone to calculate sunrise, sunset and prayer times for any place on earth. The location is used to calculate sunrise and sunset relative to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The time zone is used to add or subtract an offset to the calculated GMT. The time zone and the current date are used to add an hour automatically if the date is in daylight saving time. .All calculations are based on the phone's date, time, and time zone being set correctly.
This is the only way to calculate the current GMT time, which is the basis for further calculations in Sunclock.
The location for the application is set the first time it is launched. Then, setting the locations for App, widget, and wallpaper are accessible from the preferences.
Automatic Location | Manual Location |
Automatic Location
Latitude and longitude are received from the phone's built-in GPS or from the network. The time zone is taken from the phone's settings.
Manual Location
The location can be entered directly in the latitude and longitude fields. Alternatively, one of over 1000 cities can be selected from the city list. The city list is filtered as you type. Selecting a country from the country list will filter the cities for that country. The time zone is initialized with the phone's time zone. Selecting a city sets the time zone for that city. If the location is entered using coordinates, the time zone must also be selected manually.
Note: The longitude on the southern hemisphere is a negative number. The minus sign is at the top right of the keyboard.
Culture and Religion
Equinoctial hours
The modern clock shows equal or equinoctial hours, which, by definition, were of equal length.
They are the twenty-fourth part of a complete day, consisting of day and night.
Read more:
Hour
Temporal Hours
In many cultures and religions, day and night were divided (separately) into 12 equal parts.
Day hours were counted from sunrise to sunset,and night hours were counted from sunset to sunrise.
As the length of day and night changed throughout the year, the temporal hours varied in length accordingly.
You will find this old hour system in many of the clocks in this chapter.
Read more:
Roman Timekeeping
Ancient Arabs clock, Ottoman timekeeping, Alaturka Hour System
Zmanim
Hebrew Hour
Eretz Yisrael Clock
Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours
The Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours
is the official set of prayers that marks the hours of each day and sanctifies the day with prayer.
Japanese clock (和時計, Wadokei)
The traditional Japanese clock Wadokei has six daytime units from sunrise to sunset
and six night units from sunset to sunrise.
The six numbers 九 八 七 六 五 四 (9 8 7 6 5 4) were used for the day and the night.
The numbers 1 to 3 were reserved for the bells of the monks (to put it simply).
Read more:
wadokei.org,
Wiki,
JCWA,
Seiko Museum
Traditional Chinese Hours (時辰, Earthly Branches)
In ancient China, the day and night were divided into twelve parts, and each part was called an hour.
These hours were true sunshine hours. That is, it is longer in the summer and shorter in the winter.
12 Chinese zodiac signs
卯 辰 巳 午 未 申 酉 戌 亥 子 丑 寅 can be translated to
rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox and tiger.
Read more:
Traditional Chinese timekeeping,
Earthly Branches
時辰
Rahu Kalam
Rahu Kalam or the period of Rahu is a certain period of time each day that
is considered inauspicious for any new venture according to Vedic astrology.
The bezel is red when it's Rahu Kalam time.
Time since sunset
Displays the number of hours and minutes that have passed since sunset.
Read more:
Byzantine time,
Athonite time
Time since sunrise
Displays the number of hours and minutes that have passed since sunrise.
Shabbat Candle Lighting Time
Sunclock can show
candle lighting time
with a small hand on the dial.
Arabic Hours
In Arabic, a day has 12 hours and each hour has a distinctive name.
These names
were mentioned by Abdulmalek bin Mohammad Ath-th’aleby
(1038-961 AD) in his book “The Doctrine of the Language and the Secret of Arabic”.
Ṣalāh Prayer Times
Sunclock can show
Ṣalāh
with small markers on the 24-hour dial. They mark:
- Fajr - when the sky begins to lighten (dawn),
- Dhuhr - when the sun begins to set after reaching its highest point in the sky,
- Asr - the time when the length of an object's shadow reaches a factor (usually 1 or 2) of the length of the object itself plus the length of that object's shadow at noon,
- Maghrib - just after sunset,
- Isha - the time at which darkness falls and there is no scattered light in the sky,
- Midnight - the average time between Maghrib and Fajr or between Magrib and sunrise, depending on the method of calculation,
- Tahajjud - last third of the night ("night" is between Maghrib and Fajr, voluntary night prayer especially in Ramadan),
- Sunrise - the time when the first part of the Sun appears above the horizon,
- Sunset - the time when the sun disappears below the horizon.
- Ithna Ashari
- University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi
- Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
- Muslim World League (MWL)
- Umm al-Qura, Makkah
- Egyptian General Authority of Survey
- Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran
- Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs
Spanish electric time periods
The Spanish government
trying to encourage
more efficient energy use with a tiered model that includes peak,
low and average price periods depending on the time of day.
For Photographers
Photographers can activate the blue hour. The term blue hour refers to the peculiar coloration of the sky during at dusk after sunset and before the night time darkness, while the sun is about 4 to 8 degrees below the horizon. The same color is also seen at dawn.Photographers can take advantage of the golden hour. The golden hour is the time when the sun is plus or minus 6 degrees around sunrise and sunset. Daylight is redder and softer than when the sun is higher in the sky.
Blue hour | Golden hour |
Azimuthal Equidistant Projection of the Earth (aka Flat Earth)
Sunclock can show where on the earth the sun is perpendicular
and where day and night are.
To do this, the Earth is projected onto the dial plane using a
azimuthal equidistant projection.
The Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere, or both hemispheres (the entire earth) can be displayed.
In the latter case, the 30 degrees in the south (South Pole) are not shown because the geometry is too distorted.
The entire Earth can be displayed as a topographic map or as a graphic inspired by the
UN emblem.
The two colors of the graphic can be set individually.These earth projections are reminiscent of the myth of the flat earth believed by European scholars and educated people in the Middle Ages. It is an archaic and scientifically debunked notion. Nevertheless, there are still adherents of this idea today.
Earth projections can be displayed with the sun symbol, analemma (equation of time) and user location (small yellow dot). When the analemma is enabled, the position of the sun symbol changes with the seasons.
Northern Hemisphere Projection | Projection of both hemispheres |
The cosmic spectacle of the sun's movement is most impressively presented when the analemma and both hemispheres are turned on. Enjoy the dance of the shadow line and the rhythm of the sun on the analemma. Swipe the bottom of the screen or press the animation button twice.
Compass
Solar Compass | Magnetic Compass |
The solar compass shows
- the direction to the north (blue arrow),
- the azimuth (horizontal direction) to the sun (yellow arrow),
- the direction to Mecca (white arrow) and prayer times if enabled in the application settings,
- the relation between day length and night length by a blue and a black circular sector with the azimuth to sunrise and sunset,
- and an azimuth split for sunrise and sunset for summer solstice and winter solstice with the blue circular segments.
Preferences
Sunclock offers a wide range of options to configure the clock according to your wishes and needs. The preferences are grouped into three tabs: Gallery, Function and Design plus Options as described in the next chapter. On the one hand, there are the functions of the clock that you can choose from. On the other hand, you can specify the design of the clock in detail. Last but not least, the first tab shows some sample clocks, which you can use as a starting point to configure your individual clock. As usual, you will see any changes immediately in the clock display in the top half of the screen. Swipe the top or bottom of the clock to simulate time or date changes. Finally, you can save your settings and share them with other users as described in the next chapter.Preference Options Menu
- Save
Save the configuration to local storage or Google Drive. - Load
Load the configuration from local storage or Google Drive.. - Copy
Copies the clock configuration to the Android clipboard, an area where you can store small items. - Paste
Reads a Sunclock configuration from the clipboard and uses it to configure the app, widget or wallpaper depending on your preferences. - Reset
If you get lost in all the settings, you can use the Reset menu item to get back to the original state. It resets the configuration to the factory defaults. - Share
Shares your preference for the clock with a Sunclock preference file. When the recipient selects the file, the Sunclock application is started and configured with your preferences. Of course Sunclock has to be installed. The share message contains a link to the Sunclock installer at Google Play in case Sunclock is not installed yet. - Share Screenshot
Shares a screenshot of the Sunclock application, widget or wallpaper. Please note that the background transparency of the widget is transferred to the image file. This may result in a different background depending on where and how the shared screenshot is displayed. The share message contains a link to the Sunclock installer on Google Play and the configuration text. You can edit it manually and paste it to Sunclock via the clipboard.
October 27, 2024
© Henning Benecke 2015 - 2024.
All rights reserved.