Last updated: 2026-07-01 · draft

Need help with Transit? This guide covers the most common questions — why a score reads the way it does, why a notification didn't arrive, and how to get accurate answers about your setup — plus how to contact support effectively.

Getting Help

Before contacting support, try these resources:

  1. This page — the Common Issues section below covers the questions we hear most
  2. The Transit product page — the feature overview and FAQ explain what Transit does and doesn't do
  3. Data & Accuracy — inside Transit's settings, this pane shows the freshness of satellite orbital data and the Great Red Spot longitude, which resolves most "the times look wrong" questions

Common Issues

The Conditions score shows 0

Most likely: that's correct. The Conditions score is gated, not averaged — total cloud cover at or above 95% forces the score to 0 with the verdict "Overcast — imaging not possible," no matter how good the wind, humidity, or moon look. A 0 under an overcast sky is the score doing its job.

If the sky is genuinely clear and the score still won't load:

  1. Check your internet connection — the score needs live weather data
  2. Confirm location access in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, or set coordinates manually in Transit > Settings > General
  3. Wait a few minutes — weather refreshes on a 15-minute cycle, and brief upstream API outages resolve on their own

Seeing shows "—" instead of a number

This is expected behavior, not an error. The Seeing score comes from a separate, best-effort forecast source that doesn't cover every location and updates far less frequently than the weather data. When the seeing forecast is missing or stale, Transit shows "—" rather than implying precision it doesn't have. The Conditions score is unaffected.

I'm not getting notifications

Work through the gates in order — a notification must pass all of them:

  1. macOS permission — check System Settings > Notifications > Transit and confirm notifications are allowed
  2. The master switch — Transit > Settings > Alerts > Allow notifications
  3. Your observing hours — events outside the window you set (e.g., Sundown → 11:00 PM) never ping. Check whether the event fell outside it.
  4. The clear-sky gate — if it's overcast, alerts are suppressed by design and a small cloud shape appears on the menu bar item. The events are still listed in the panel.
  5. Altitude and seeing floors — a target below your minimum altitude, or seeing below your floor, won't trigger an alert
  6. The per-event control — each event type has its own setting in its category's section. "Off" and "Badge only" never produce a ping.

The most common report — "I missed a shadow transit last night" — is almost always the clear-sky gate or the observing-hours window working as configured. Both are adjustable in Settings > Alerts.

A notification arrived, but the sky was cloudy

Weather data refreshes every 15 minutes, and the forecast is for your coordinates, not your exact patch of sky. A fast-moving cloud band can arrive between refreshes, and local microclimates (coastal fog, valley haze) can differ from the nearest forecast grid point. If this happens regularly, check that your location is set accurately — a manual coordinate entry for a fixed observing site is more precise than coarse automatic location.

Satellite pass times seem off

  1. Open Transit > Settings > Data & Accuracy and check the freshness line under Satellite orbital data (e.g., "Updated 4 hours ago · auto")
  2. Confirm Refresh data automatically is on — with it off, orbital elements decay within days and pass predictions drift
  3. If you've been offline, Transit uses the last good data and flags reduced confidence; predictions sharpen again once it can refresh
  4. Confirm your location is correct — pass geometry is location-sensitive

Great Red Spot transit times are slightly off

The Great Red Spot drifts slowly in longitude, so its predicted transit times depend on how recently the longitude value was synced. Check Settings > Data & Accuracy > Great Red Spot for the sync date. Between syncs, Transit applies the known drift rate automatically. If you follow JUPOS or Sky & Telescope's published values, you can also enter the current System II longitude manually.

The Transit icon disappeared from my menu bar

macOS hides menu bar items when the bar runs out of room — apps with wide menus or notched MacBooks make this worse. Transit itself is still running. To get it back:

  1. Remove or hide other menu bar items you don't need (or use a menu bar manager)
  2. In Transit > Settings > Menu Bar, run the single Combined icon instead of multiple category icons — one item is far likelier to stay visible on a crowded bar
  3. Pick a narrower Conditions format (a single score, or glyph only) to reduce the item's width

My location is wrong, or I observe from a fixed site

Go to Transit > Settings > General > Location and switch from Automatic to Manual, then enter the coordinates of your observing site. Manual coordinates are the right choice for a permanent observatory — everything downstream (rise/set times, altitudes, pass predictions, weather) uses them.

Submitting a Support Request

What to Include

1. Problem Description

  • What were you expecting to happen?
  • What happened instead?
  • Does it happen every time, or intermittently?

2. Steps to Reproduce

  • "Notifications don't work" makes troubleshooting difficult
  • "The Io shadow transit at 11:04 PM last night never pinged me. My observing hours are Sundown → 1 AM, the clear-sky gate is on, and the sky was clear. Shadow transits are set to 15 min before." is much better

3. Environment

  • Transit version (shown in Transit > Settings > About)
  • macOS version and Mac model
  • Your rough location (city-level is fine — it matters for weather coverage and pass geometry)
  • A screenshot of Settings > Alerts and, for data questions, Settings > Data & Accuracy

Example Support Request

Subject: ISS pass alert fired an hour late

Problem: Last night's ISS pass was predicted for 9:12 PM in Transit but the pass actually happened around 8:55 PM. The alert arrived after the pass was over. This is the second night in a row.

Environment:

  • Transit 1.0
  • macOS 26.1, MacBook Air M2
  • Houston, TX area · manual coordinates
  • Data & Accuracy shows "Updated 6 days ago" for satellite data — auto-refresh was off

Contact Support

If you've tried the troubleshooting steps and still need help, contact us:

Email: support@macobservatory.com

Please include:

  • Your problem description
  • Steps to reproduce
  • Environment details
  • Relevant settings screenshots

We typically respond within 1–2 business days.