Timings of astro binding range events

Under Openhab 4.3 I was having trouble getting the astro:sun:night to trigger an END range event. Looking in my logs it seems this event doesn’t exist. So for others I thought I’d list what my log says is triggered and when. I use this in a rule to change an Item that keeps track of night and day (TLDR: use astro:sun:daylight START and END not astro:sun:night).

Starting at midnight the triggers and timings I saw were:

Time Channel Event

00:30, morningNight, START

Sun below horizon by 18°, morningNight, END

Sun below horizon by 18°, astroDawn, START

Sun below horizon by 12° , astroDawn, END

Sun below horizon by 12°, nauticDawn, START

Sun below horizon by 6°, nauticDawn, END

Sun below horizon by 6°, civilDawn, START

Sunrise, civilDawn, END

Sunrise, rise, START

Sunrise + a couple of mins, rise, END

Sunrise + a couple of mins, daylight, START

Sunset, daylight, END

Sunset, set, START

Sunset + a couple of mins, set, END

Sunset + a couple of mins, civilDusk, START

Sun below horizon by 6°, civilDusk, END

Sun below horizon by 6°, nauticDusk , START

Sun below horizon by 12°, nauticDusk, END

Sun below horizon by 12°, astroDusk, START

Sun below horizon by 18°, astroDusk, END

Sun below horizon by 18°, eveningNight, START

Sun below horizon by 18°, night, START

I use two of these range events (daylight START and END) as triggers in two rules to change the state of a String item (from NIGHT to DAY) which I can then use in a rule as a conditional comparison. This is used to control whether a presence sensor turns on a light or not. If the item is in a state “NIGHT” then the light is turned on otherwise the rule doesn’t run.