To get the timer ticks at a given time, use the time.time() function. It returns the time in seconds since the epoch as a floating point number. Note that even though the time is always returned as a floating point number, not all systems provide time with a better precision than 1 second.
Example
import time curr_time = time.time() print(curr_time)
Output
1514823178.6920464
Note that different systems will have different accuracy based on their internal clock setup (ticks per second). but it's generally at least under 20ms. Also note while this function normally returns non-decreasing values, it can return a lower value than a previous call if the system clock has been set back between the two calls.