.. chapter:: Using GPS
    
Time and Location settings are critical to the proper operation of StellarMate. The sources of each can be from GPS, Internet, or StellarMate App. When using StellarMate App, the time and location data from the phone/tablet is dispatched to StellarMate which is then syncrhoized. Therefore, a GPS is not strictly necessary when using the SM App directly to control StellarMate.

# Time

Time can be fetched from StellarMate App, or Internet (if available), or GPS module. On the StellarMate Pro, the built-in GPS should provide accurate time and location data. For StellarMate on Raspberry PI and MiniPC, an external USB GPS dongle would be necessary for accurate time keeping.

# Location

Location can be fetched from StellarMate App or GPS module. When connecting remotely to StellarMate from KStars, ensure that both your local KStars and remote system have the same time, location, and timezone to ensure accurate simulation of the night sky.

The time & location settings are not only used for KStars, but also to synchronize the mount and any other devices with time & location dependencies. For example, some weather drivers depend on location to query and retrieve information about the current weather.

You can select the *master source* of each field to give you fine control. Some INDI drivers (e.g. GPSD) can provide location and time services and therefore can be selected as the master source. When using StellarMate Pro, you can either use KStars as the master source or allow StellarMate (SM Pro GPS) to act as the primary time and location provider. In both cases, KStars will synchronize once Ekos starts.

**Note**
When using GPS dongle or StellarMate Pro, the unit's time & location are automatically synced on startup given the GPS achieved a lock. There is no reason to use GPSD driver nor modify master source, leaving it to KStars is fine as the system time and location is updated automatically by StellarMate

From SM App:

.. image:: /_static/images/sm_app_mount.jpg
    :align: center
    :width: 400px

From Ekos:

.. image:: /_static/images/kstars_mount.jpg
    :align: center
    :width: 400px

.. include:: selecting-dongle.rst
.. include:: configuring-stellarmate.rst