Event Countdown and Notifications – Help Center

This article covers the Event Countdown and Notifications features of The Photographer's Ephemeris iOS app.

The Photographer's Ephemeris for iOS version 4.14 introduces new functionality, Event Countdown and Notifications.

Event Countdown and Notifications provides you with:

A easily readable prominent countdown timer to the events displayed in the Timeline
Optionally, audible notifications to your device to let you know when events are approaching

You can run the countdown and notifications in one of two modes: Rehearsal and Live:

Rehearsal Mode allows you to view and hear notifications for any date in any location, past or present, e.g. next month's total solar eclipse, or next year's perigee Moonrise
Live Mode runs countdowns for the current date and time at whatever location you have the app set to.

There are a number of key use cases:

Solar Eclipse Photography: you have a large of number of images to take in a highly compressed time frame, and execution is critical - miss C2 by 10 seconds, and you've missed your Diamond Ring and Baily's Beads shots
Destination Arrival timing: you're hiking to a view point in the hopes of catching the rising the Moon. You need to remain aware of how long it is until Moonrise
Shooting Window: the time window for your shot of the Sun reflecting in the glass of the tallest buildings in town is from 15 minutes until Sunset. When will the shot window open. How long remains?

For troubleshooting of event notification sounds, see Event Notification Sounds.

Getting Started

To access the Event Countdown and Notifications functionality, view the Timeline Page. Two items are shown:

First, Rehearsal Mode indicates that the Event Countdown is in Rehearsal Mode, and shows the app's current configured Date and Time. You can adjust the selected Date and Time using the normal controls on the Map page, by tapping an event in the Event list below this, or on the Countdown Page itself (described below).

Secondly, the Notifications Status item shows that no notifications are currently scheduled for delivery, and secondly that your device is configured optimally to receive notifications.

In Live Mode, this section appears like this:

No date and time are displayed - the countdown will use your device's current Date and Time, irrespective of what the app was previously configured to.

The Notifications Status item shows that 16 notifications are scheduled.

Using the Event Countdown Page

By default, the app will use Rehearsal Mode. Tap "Rehearsal Mode" to view the Event Countdown page. In this example, prior to viewing the page, the app has been configured as follows:

The Map location is set to somewhere 780 miles away from the current device location
The selected event on the timeline is Moonset for March 8 2024

Let's look at what is displayed:

The page is divided into three areas:

Top: Most Recent timeline event
Center: Next timeline event
Bottom: Upcoming timeline event - i.e. the one after next

You can tap on the Most Recent or Upcoming events to change the selected time - the display will update accordingly. Note: tapping is disabled when Live mode is enabled, or when the countdown timer is running.

Focusing on the Center area of the Page:

The name and time of the next event are shown
The app is in Rehearsal Mode
The Countdown Timer indicates that Moonset is 'due' now (T minus zero seconds) - but remember: we're in Rehearsal Mode, so this isn't a live countdown - it's relative to the time you selected
The Play/Pause button will start or stop the countdown timer
The app's Date and Time are displayed, plus a 10 second rewind button (disabled when Live or when the countdown timer is running)
Notifications are currently enabled - you can tap to enable them, but note: in Rehearsal Mode, they aren't actually scheduled until you start the countdown timer (otherwise, they'd never be in sync!)

A row of three status icons is shown next, as follows:

Your notifications settings are correct - you should be all set to receive notifications from the app.
- If there's a problem, a warning icon is shown in either warning yellow or danger . You can tap the warning to find out more information about the issue, together with instructions on how to correct it.
The countdown and notifications are configured for our device's current location - if you're more than 1 mile away, a warning icon and the distance are displayed, e.g. 6 miles away.
- If the warning indicator is shown, that means that the countdown and notifications are not correct for your current location. You can fix that by setting the app to your current location, then rescheduling the notifications (by pausing and restarting in Rehearsal mode, or by exiting and re-entering Live mode
Your device's clock appears to be set accurately - we compare your device's time against high accuracy internet time servers
- If a difference of more than 0.5 seconds is detected, or if your device is offline and the app cannot confirm accuracy, a warning is displayed.
- If your device's time differs by more than 0.5 seconds but less than 1 second, a warning is shown
- If your device's time differs by more than 1 second, a danger icon is shown
- You can tap the warning or danger icons for further instructions

We use three colors to denote the countdown status:

White: default
Yellow: Standby - the next event is due within 15 seconds
Green: Active - the next event has just passed. This is normally shown for 10 seconds after the event time.

Note: for C3 Third Contact in a solar eclipse, active status (green) is maintained for 60 seconds, as these are critical times for photographers where various actions are usually required (e.g. continue shooting for a few seconds, replace solar filter on the camera)

Rehearsal Mode vs Live Mode

Rehearsal Mode is intended to allow you to test and rehearse a sequence of events in advance, as needed. You don't need to wait until the day, and you don't need to be on location in order to rehearse your photography plan.

Live Mode is for use on the day of your shoot. In general, you'll use it while on location too, but you don't have to (see below).

Here's a comparison of the two modes:

Behavior	Rehearsal Mode	Live Mode
App can be configured for any location
You can choose the start time from which to 'play' the timeline events
Events occur in real-time based on your device's clock
Notifications cancellation	Canceled on tapping Pause or exiting the Timeline Page	Notifications remain schedule while Live Mode is selected. Exiting the Timeline Page does not cancel notifications.
Notification protection		You can lock live mode to on to prevent accidentally canceling notifications
Notifications remain scheduled on backgrounding or force quitting the app
On change of the app's location (e.g. on the map), scheduled notifications are:	Not updated	Not updated

Enabling Notifications

You will be asked for permission for the app to send Notifications the first time you enable Notifications:

IMG_2434 (1).jpeg

If you would like to receive notifications, choose Allow.

If you have Scheduled Summary enabled on your device, you will also see an option to Allow in Scheduled Summary. This is not recommended - if you select this option, notifications will be delivered, but not necessarily at the correct time, which defeats the purpose of event countdown notifications entirely.

If you choose Don't Allow, you will not receive any notifications from the app. You can change this in Settings.

In Rehearsal Mode, after enabling and allowing Notifications, the app will still show the 0 notifications are scheduled. This is because notifications are only scheduled when you start the countdown timer. Here's an example: on the left, notifications are enabled but not scheduled, as the countdown timer has not yet been started. On the right, notifications are enabled and scheduled, as we started the countdown timer using the Play button:

After tapping Play, it may take a couple of seconds for the notification count to update - this is because it takes a moment for the operating system to update the scheduled notification count.

While the countdown timer is enabled, you can tap the scheduled notifications count - i.e. where it says "11 notifications scheduled" above - to view what notifications are upcoming:

You can swipe left to delete any notification you do not wish to receive, or you can Delete all Scheduled Notifications using the button at the bottom of the screen.

Deleting a notification deletes only that specific instance of the notification - if you pause and then restart in Rehearsal mode, or exit and then re-enter Live mode, the same set of notifications will be re-scheduled next time.

We plan to add an option to disable particular notification types, such as "Sunset in 30 minutes" in a future release.

The Configuration section at the top of the page shows where the notifications were scheduled by the app, and also the precise location for which they were configured, and how far that lies from your device's current location (we require location permissions from you to calculate this).

Why do we allow notifications to be configured for a remote location? Several reasons:

It's necessary in order to rehearse effectively: if you're photographing the solar eclipse in Mexico, but are based in Colorado, you have to be able to pretend you're already on location
You may be traveling to a shooting location, e.g. driving or hiking. You want the notifications for your destination, not your current location
You may want to remind a friend to look up at a certain time of day in the place they live - that might not be the same as your location
You may want to watch a live stream of some astronomical event, such as a lunar eclipse, at a remote location and to know when the key moments are approaching.

That said, in most situations, notifications are useful when they are relevant to where you are. For that reason, we show a warning icon if your device location is more than 1500m or ~1 mile from the app's configured location.

Notifications and Announcements

The app offers two types of notifications: with announcement and without. Which type is delivered depends on the event in question. The following events are accompanied by voice announcements in either English or Spanish:

Rise and Set

Sunrise: -30m, -15m, -5m, -2m, -1m, due
Moonrise: -30m, -15m, -5m, -2m, -1m, due
Sunset: -1h, -30m, -5m, -1m, due
Moonset: -1h, -30m, -5m, -1m, due

Solar Eclipse

C1: -30m, -5m, -60s, -30s, standby, countdown
C2: -30m, -15m, -5m, -2m, -60s, -30s, standby, countdown
Maximum eclipse: -60s, -30s, standby, countdown
C3: -60s, -30s, standby, countdown, +15s, +30s, +60s
C4: -30m, -5m, -60s, -30s, standby, countdown

In cases where the eclipse is of short duration, announcements are dropped where they would otherwise occur out of sequence. For example, for an eclipse where totality lasts only 40 seconds, you will not hear a -60s Maximum eclipse announcements before C2.

Non-eclipse related notifications (e.g. New Moon, Lunar Meridian Transit) are suppressed between C2 and C3 to allow your focus to remain on the eclipse only.

All other events are simply notified as they occur using the default notification sound.

We expect to expand the number of event with voice announcements and the number of supported announcement languages in future updates.

Using Live Mode

Important Note: the app will only ever schedule notifications for the current day. You cannot schedule notifications for a future date. There it is essential to enable notifications in live mode on the day of your shoot.

You can enable Live Mode by swiping the selection from Rehearsal to Live (left). Once enabled, you may additionally tap the Lock button to prevent unintentionally disabling notifications or switching back to Rehearsal Mode (right):

When enabled, Live Mode changes the configured time of the app to your device's current time and, if enabled, schedules notifications for your displayed timeline events.

It does NOT change the configured location of the app, as noted above - this is to support a variety of situations where you might wish to receive notifications for events occurring at a location other than where you currently are.

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