Note: I’m looking into a solution to add the symbol/planet names. I might add them right under the symbol, but this makes the main screen look crowded, so I’m searching for a cleaner alternative.
Planetary Hours update 1.1 is available in the App Store.
What’s new in version 1.1: Automatic GMT and Daylight Savings. Supposing that your device, iPhone or iPod touch has the right time, date and location settings, the application will use the same settings to determine the planetary hours.
Planetary Hours is an iPhone application which allows you to always know the Planetary Hours for your current location.
The algorithm to calculate the Planetary Hours needs to know three things: current location’s latitude and longitude, and the GMT offset. By using these data, it calculates the sunrise and sunset for the specified location, and then the Planetary Hours.
Here is how the application looks like:
The main screen, shows you the Planetary Hours for the selected location and GMT offset. In the bottom left corner, you will see the latitude and longitude for the selected location.
In the bottom right corner, if you touch the “i” button, you’ll go to the Preferences screen.
The first field on this screen is a switch called “System GMT“. If this switch is on, the application will use the time and date settings from the device. Make sure you have the right time and location set on your device if you want the application results to be accurate. In newer versions of the iPhone OS, the location is determined automatically, so you probably don’t need to worry about that.
The second field is the “GMT offset“. This shows you the GMT offset wether you specified it manually or it’s determined from the device’s settings. If you specify the GMT offset manually, keep in mind the following rule: during summer, you’ll have to add up the summer daylight saving. This leads to 2 for Western Europe, 3 for Eastern Europe, and -4 for Eastern US coast. During winter, you’ll have 1 for Wester Europe, 2 for Eastern Europe and -5 for Eastern US coast.
The third field on this screen is a switch, called “Manual Lat&Lng“. By setting this switch to ON, you’ll be able to specify manually the latitude and longitude, in the next two fields. This field is disabled and always on for iPod touch users, as you don’t have a built-in GPS. This means you’ll have to specify the location latitude and longitude. You only have to do this once, as the application remembers these values after you restart it. (For instructions on how to find the coordinates for your location, see the end of this article.)
If you’re running the application on an iPhone 3G or 3GS and you have a built in GPS, than you can toggle this switch ON or OFF, depending on your preferences. If the switch is OFF, than you’ll always get the Planetary Hours for your current location, which is much more convenient than specifying the coordinates every time you change your location.
At the bottom of the Preferences screen, you can select the date for which you want to see the Planetary Hours.
If the current date is selected, than the current planetary hour is highlighted in red. If another date is selected, you’ll see all the planetary hours for that specific date, with none of them highlighted.
One thing that you must know, is the fact that a Planetary Day starts with the sunrise and ends with the next sunrise. This means that if it’s 1AM in the morning, you’ll still see the Planetary Hours for the previous calendaristic day, as the Planetary Day isn’t over until the sunrise.
Instructions on how to find the coordinates for your location
There are a lot of on-line tools which can help you find the coordinates for your current location. For example, visit http://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm and in the “Centre the map around” field enter your location, for example “Paris, France” or “Bucharest, Romania” or “Chicago, Illinois”. Then click “Go!” or hit Return, and the map on the right will center around the specified location. Below the map, you’ll see the coordinates for the specified location. For example, you’ll see “Latitude = 41.8795, Longitude = -87.6243” if you’ve specified “Chicago, Illinois”.
This is all you need to know to be able to use this application, if you have any questions or comments or suggestions, please add a comment below.
Thank you!
Inima Treaza 
Hi,
I just bought your app on the appstore. It’s great, and very simple to use. I gave it 4 stars. There are two things that I would have liked to have seen that would have earned it 5 stars instead of 4. Support for auto DST detection would have been nice, and also you might want to put the planetary names under their symbols because many new people working with magick are not really familiar with the planetary symbols.
Hi Kelvin,
thanks for your feedback. Adding the hour names in there is pretty tricky as the screen will get pretty crowded with info. I’ll think about a solution for this. I’ll also think about the auto DST detection. I was waiting for some feedback from the users, as I only want to add what you, the users, will use. Thanks for the first feedback! 🙂
Is this adjustable for Vedic astrology ? Thankyou. I follow Vedic RSI as instructed by Astroved, a Vedic astrology company.
Planetary Hours only computes the sunrise and sunset and then shows which planet influences each hour (planetary hours). It doesn’t take into consideration zodiac signs or anything else.
Hello. I just purchased the program and it doesn’t seem to be working correctly. I entered by coordinates (43.2 Lat, 77.6 Lng) and it’s showing times for the Day Hours such as 20:-140. That’s not a valid time! In fact, all but one of the Day Hour values consist of 20: and then some negative number. Any idea what’s going on? I have a an ipod touch running the latest operating system. Thanks in advance.
Perhaps more importantly, it won’t allow me to enter a negative value for the longitude. When I enter it it automatically switches it to a positive value. ???
Hi Brenden, can you please tell me your location (city, country) and I’ll help with the right settings you have to use.
Using the coordinates you’ve written there, I suppose you might be around Rochester / New York, which is 5 hours behind the GMT, that’s -5, + 1 for the daylight saving, that’s -4. Coordinates to use in the application for this location are: Latitude 43.13, Longitude -77.38.
Click on the “i” on the main screen, go to the Preferences panel and use: -4.0 for the GMT Offset, 43.13 for the Latitude and -77.38 for the longitude.
To enter negative values, the – sign is right under 1.
And Brenden, next time, instead of submitting a negative review to an app, please ask the developers first. Thank you!
Thanks. I had no trouble locating the negative sign, but when I entered it it automatically switched the number back to a positive value. I tried it again just now and it seems to be working. Maybe it had something to do with the order in which I entered the values? At any rate, I was definitely getting invalid times before, but it’s okay now. I will update by feedback accordingly. Thanks.
Hi! Another one for DST time! I’ve had a hard time to set the offset since I’m in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil (22.92 S 43.27W) and we’re using summertime now. I guess the correct is -2 but software showed 2 at the beginning. Anyway,great software that I’d like to see some future improvements. Thank you!
Hi Sergio!
did you manage to set the GMT offset to -2? Please let me know if you’re having troubles with this.
Yes,because it “came” with 2. Now, works fine with -2 (standard is -3). But it would be great to have DST option. All the best.
Ok, I’ll look into the DST option.
Hi. Great app.
A question : why do some of the hours during the day come up in red ?
A suggestion : referring back to the person who suggested names of the planets. Could you perhaps create an additional page that has the planet symbols and their names that you could a) just swipe to the right to see and the swipe to the left to come back to the page with the hours, and/or b) have a button at the bottom next to the “i” button to take you to that page ?
Hi there, only the current planetary hour should come up in red. If you see more than one at a time, it means something’s wrong. Can you please give me your current coordinates (they’re written on the main screen, in the bottom left corner).
About another screen with explanations for each icon, it’s a great suggestion. Thanks!
Hi, I have many planets in red right now. I am trying to put lat 53.33 N and long 113.30 W. Any suggestions?
Also like the other writer I have many times that have negative minutes. ie 14:-32
Thanks
Hi Maija,
please make sure the GMT offset is correct.
Here’s a couple of questions and suggestions:
1. what device are you running the application on? if you’re running it on an iPhone, the app will use your regional time setting and use the GPS to get your current location.
2. if you’re running the app on an iPod touch, you’ll have to specify on the Preferences screen the GMT offset, the Latitude and the Longitude.
3. Please tell me what values do you see in each field on the Preferences screen and I’ll help you configure the app correctly.
Hi Sergiu, I purchased this app about a month ago and have been using it several times a day religiously (I used to do the calculations manually on a daily basis, so this is alot more portable and efficient)! So firstly thank you so much for creating this!
I was just wondering for a future release if it would be possible to have the Icon of the program change to reflect the current planet and perhaps even a small box that would show on the icon what time the next change would occur. i.e. a symbol of Venus showing the starting time of Mercury.
I’m not sure how hard this would be to implement, but I know it is possible as the stock iphone “Calendar” icon reflects the current weekday and date and changes daily. But this change would help greatly for working Magicians who will be able to at a glance know what the current hour is and how long is left to do a working (without having to navigate all the way into the program).
Kind Regards from Australia
Hi Jes, changing the icon depending on the hour is a great idea.
I’ll think about showing the starting time for the next hour. I was also thinking about configurable notifications, like “notify me X minutes before the next hour starts”; this will be possible for every iPhone with iOS 4 which will be realeased in a few days as a free update to all iPhones and iPod touch.
Hi Sergiu, Thanks heaps for the quick reply and the update 🙂 Anything that you can implement to improve the apps usefulness will be much appreciated! The notifications will also definitely be a handy addition! Can’t wait to see it! Keep up the great work!
Hello,
I bought the application.
I’m setting both GMT and Lat&Lng settings to automatic, it seems the inputs are true.
(City: Ankara, Country: Turkey, GMT:3, Lat:39.87 Lng:32.88)
The problem is, the result is different than this web sites calculator: http://www.astrology.com.tr/planetary-hours.asp
The time intervals are same but the sign of the planets are different.
And I’m not sure which is true.. 😦
Help please.
Hi Kerim,
First of all, thanks for buying the app! Now let’s figure out where the problem is.
I just tested both the app on the iPhone and the app at astrology.com.tr. And they’re showing almost the same thing, the slight differences between when a planetary hour starts comes from the fact that the coordinates for Ankara on the website are a bit different than the ones you gave.
About the icons, they should be the same and if they’re not, there’s somewhere a wrong setting. This is how you should test: if today is Friday, than the first planetary hour should be Venus. For Saturday, it should be Saturn, then Sunday – Sun, Monday – Moon, Tuesday – Mars, Wednesday – Mercury, Thursday – Jupiter.
This is the first thing you should look for: if the day does not start with the right hour, than it means the app (or the website) is not showing the planetary hours for the current day. Look at the settings and make sure the right day is selected.
On the iPhone, the day is selected automatically, but you might have changed it by mistake.
The second thing to look for when looking at the icons, is the order in which the hours are displayed. The order is always this: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, then again Saturn, Jupiter, and so on.
Using this order, if today is let’s say Friday, then the hours should be: Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and so on.
Please make sure you have the right day selected also.
Come back here and add a comment if everything is ok but you still have the problem.
Love the app, only a couple thing I would love to see. One is a separate page that defines the symbols and what planet they represent. Two, when you go between dates, (or screens) the date “jumps” to the current date which is annoying if your trying to plan a span of time.
I forgot to mention, I would recommend taking a look at the app “moon phase” to model after, they worked out the date and display in a way that would work awesome with this planetary app
Salut Sergiu,
Aplicatia ta pare sa fie foarte apreciata.Felicitari!Totusi cred ca pe site-ul tau trebuie sa mai lucrezi putin la partea de marketing/promovare. De exemplu pagina prezentarea generala a aplicatiei de pe site se adreseaza “clientului premium” sau celui care cunoaste utilitatea practica a folosirii aplicatiei si intra pentru a o cumpara. Ce facem insa cu clienti potentiali, care nu au suficiente date despre avantajele, beneficiile folosirii aplicatiei?
Anna, multumesc pentru sugestii. Interesul meu nu este sa fac promovare aplicatiei. Am dezvoltat-o pentru ca o folosesc si eu, si daca tot am facut-o, am zis ca o pun si pe iTunes, in cazul in care vor si altii sa o foloseasca. Nu planific sa investesc timp si bani in promovarea ei. Oricum, multumesc pentru sugestie 😉
Iti multumesc si eu pentru raspunsul prompt.Cu siguranta iti voi scrie dupa ce voi cumpara si folosi aplicatia.
O zi cu inspiratie si pe curand!
Hi Sergio,
I have just bought your iphone app. Thanks a lot to create it. I have a humble suggestion! Do you mind to add a feature to able to set an alert for desired planet in next version
Cheers
The Blue
Hi TheBlue,
I was thinking about that too for quite some time. The only problem is that this was not possible before iOS 4, that’s why it’s not in there yet. I’ll be thinking about adding it in a new version.
Sergiu
Hi Sergio,
You said that, first you created this application on Java enabled phones. So can you please give me the link of your best ever application, i really need it on my phone and it is not available on the internet. I really thankful to you. Please reply me, i am waiting your response.
I’m sorry Astrosomi, but the version that I had written in Java was running on an old phone and it was probably 5 or 6 years ago. I don’t have it anymore and haven’t saved it anywhere. But if I think about writing it for Android phones, which use Java for developing apps, I’ll write right here.
Salutare Sergiu! in primul rand felicitari pentru ce ai facut! am gasit link-ul tau de pe facebook mai degraba decat din interes pentru orele planetare, fiindca habar n-aveam ca exista iar acum am cautat mai multe si pare o chestie interesanta!
Keep up the good work!
PS: ai fost cumva prin constanta-mamaia vara trecuta? sper sa nu te fi confundat eu, mai ales ca trecusera 12-13 ani de cand te stiam eu (LM)
Salut!
Vara trecuta am stat 2 luni la Constanta, sa fiu aproape de mare :). Hai ca povestim pe Facebook, ca vad ca m-ai gasit 😉
Bought the app yesterday. Read through this site a number of times. The planetary hours for today, Saturday 5 Feb 2011, are showing as Sun, Venus etc which would suggest it is showing Sunday’s hours.
Any way of configuring it correctly?
Hi Jackyt,
please tell me the coordinates that you see on the main view of the app; also, tap on the little ‘i” on the right lower corner of the app, which will take you to the Preferences view, and tell me what values do you see for the GMT offset. Also, make sure that in this window, the selected date is today, not tomorrow (which is Sunday).
Hi Sergio,
Thanks for quick reply. Settings as follows:
Lat 51.54
Lng -8.28
System GMT: ON
GMT offset: 0.0
Selected date 5 February 2011
Hi Jackyt,
I set my own device (iPhone 4) with your data and it shows me the first planetary hour as: Saturn, starting at 8:05, the next one Jupiter, starting at 8:52, and so on. So it seems correct to me. Can you please tell me what device are you running the app on and also, do the following: if you go to the settings view, and select 4 Feb 2011 as the date, then click done, is Venus the first hour? Also, if you select the date as 6 Feb 2011, is Sun the first hour?
Hi Sergiu,
I use iPod Touch, 64GB, OS 4.2.1 (up-to-date)
For 4 Feb, sequence is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars etc
For 6 Feb, sequence is Moon, Saturn, Jupiter etc
Calendar on iPod reads Sunday 6 February 2011
For some reason, the App is giving the Hours for the following day!
Hi Jackyt,
you’re right, for some reason the app is showing the following planetary day. I’m a bit puzzled here, as the day is read from the system. I’m still thinking there’s some settings that you have on your iPod and that’s causing the problem. If we can find that and I can reproduce the problem, I can also fix it. If you open your Settings application and go to the General page, please tell me if you have the same options as me or something similar for the following:
1. Date & Time: 24-Hour Time is OFF; Set Automatically is ON;
2. International: Region Format is United States, Calendar is Gregorian.
Nothing else that might impact the system date comes to my mind right now, so let’s see these for now.
Hi Sergiu,
I changed the settings to those given by you.
I set the 24-Hour time to OFF (My setting was 24-Hour Time ON)
I set the International Region Format to United States (My setting was Ireland)
The app now shows the hours correctly.
Thanks for your help.
Jackyt, I’m glad it works now. I’ll test with your previous settings, it should work with those also. Thanks for your feedback!
Hello Serglu,
I recently purchased your app and I’ve manually entered lat. and long. into the program. But my problem now is it’s telling me the planetary hour for 3AM when it’s 3PM.
Thank you for your help.
Hi Victoria,
Let me try to insert the same data that you have and see if I get the same problem. Please tap on the little “i” on the right lower corner, and you’ll be taken to the Preferences view. From here, please tell me what values do you have for: System GMT (on or off, if it’s on, the button is blue), GMT offset, Lat and Lng and date. Now, if you tap “Done”, you’ll be taken to the main view of the app. Here, please tell me the first hour, for example 7:37.
Thanks!