[ntp:questions] Purpose of a leap second file?

John Hasler jhasler at newsguy.com
Sat Mar 3 21:13:02 UTC 2012


David E. Ross writes:
> Why require a UTC adjustment from TAI?  If the data represent a
> satellite orbiting the earth and the sub-satellite point on the
> earth's surface is needed, the TAI is converted to UTC, which is then
> converted through UT2 to UT1 and possibly to UT0 before obtaining the
> sidereal time.  Sidereal time then gives the current angle of the
> earth's rotation for computing longitude.

Thus UTC is just a kind of timezone-like localization and leap-seconds
belong in tzdata.

-- 
John Hasler 
jhasler at newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA



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