When auto flats are set up it shows a time when they will start or at least shows the astronomical dawn time. Last month, my sequence ended about 1 hour before astronomical dawn and the flats started immediately after. They turned out just fine but i was wondering if the time indicated is the time they should automatically start or is it just information to help judge your imaging time?
Last weekend my auto flats failed due to clouds causing the sequence to run longer than expected after PHD lost the guide stars a couple times. Maybe it would be good practice to put an end time for light events that is a little earlier than the astronomical dawn to prevent the flats from failing and maximizing the number of light frames.
This really depends on what version of the beta you were using as a fairly recent version corrected an issue here. This version corrected the start time for dawn flats and uses civil twilight.
In versions before 1106, it is possible that the time specified in the UI might not have matched the actual start time used by the sequencing engine. To answer your question tho… yes, that should be a start time for auto flats plus or minus 60 seconds.