How to use the Zodiac Watch

On startup the Zodiac Watch displays a wheel chart for the actual time and date and a location in Austria (48° 04' North and 16° 17' East). If you are just interested in the planets' positions of the moment this should suit you well. Note that the time is shown in GMT, so it will most likely be different from your local time. To enter other values for both time and location use the input panel shown in figure 8.

Figure 8: Zodiac Watch input panel

Typing valid data into a text-field, most of the time this will be numbers, will update the chart at once. Sometimes, for example when just deleting a character, you will have to press Enter to update the chart manually. You may also use the scrollbars' arrow buttons to modify the values by a small amount. For example by pressing the left arrow button of the date display, the date is decreased by one day. Finally you can drag the scrollbar itself to adjust the values inside the allowed range.

Input Values

Location

• Location latitude:
  The first location input field is for the latitude, i.e. the geographic south-north position. The value contains degrees, minutes (1' = 1/60°) and seconds (1" = 1/3600°), but can be configured to allow decimal degrees as well. It ranges from 89° South 59' 59" to 89° North 59' 59" and the arrow buttons of the scrollbar modify the latitude by two degrees. Note that some house systems are not defined for latitudes below or beyond fixed values.
• Location longitude:
  Next is the longitude, i.e. the geographic west-east position in degrees, minutes and seconds. It ranges from 179° West 59' 59" to 179° East 59' 59", and the arrow buttons of the scrollbar modify the longitude by two degrees, too.

Date/Time

• Date:
  The date field contains day, month and year, separated by dots, i.e. DD.MM.YYYY. It ranges from -1.1.4712 (which is in fact 1.1. -4712 or 1.1.4713 before Christ) to 31.12.9999 and the arrow buttons of the scrollbar modify the date by one day. It can be configured to show the Julian date instead, ranging from 0 to 5373484.
• Time:
  The time field contains GMT in hours, minutes and seconds with a (surprising) range of 0:0:0 to 23:59:59. The arrow buttons of its scrollbar add or subtract five minutes.

Buttons

The "Config" button opens the configuration frame. There the display of the input values can be configured. Read the configuration section to learn more about how to configure Zodiac Watch. The "About" button opens the about panel with version information and references.