John,

Don't know if these are intentional, but I though I'd point out a couple of observations (upgrading from 3.19 to 3.30.2).

1) In 3.19 I had configured SkyStar for focusing. After the upgrade, it was Focus at X,Y.
2) In 3.19, with multiple targets selected and light frames configured for each, I could hit reset times on the target page and all the target times would reset with the first target having a start of current time, end of start + light frame + overhead, 2nd target with start of first target end, etc. In 3.30.2, all targets end up with start and end times of the current time regardless of any light frames configured. Curiously going to the run session page and then back to the targets page after doing reset times corrects this back to the 3.19 behavior.

A minor enhancement request - could you bump the max values for overhead? I do 30m subs with re-focus every 10 minutes (to force refocus every sub). This results in an average overhead of around 6 minutes between subs. The overhead limit appears to be 100 secs last I checked.

Paul Howard

Hi Paul,

Yes, item 1 was intentional as a result of some internal restructuring to support @Focus2.

I am unable to duplicate item 2 with 3.30.4, which is the current preview version. If you try 3.30.4 and get the same results, zip up your target list along with the steps to reproduce those results and I will dig into it further.

I assume you are referring to the "other delay" setting, correct? There is an internal assignment of 240 sec. for focusing within the code but that may not be sufficient, especially if you are using off-target focusing and centering of the focus star. I will increase the other delay maximum value to 999 on the next build.

Thanks for the feedback!

John,

The issue with item 2 seems resolved with 3.30.5. And the new other delay limit is great.

Thanx,

Paul Howard

John,

I spoke to soon. It just happened again running 3.30.5 (the time reset on the targets page). I had aborted a run (see attached log) because it started imaging too close to the meridian. The seeing tonight is highly variable and I have focusmax convergence enabled....so it took 16 minutes to give up on the focus. There were only 20 minutes left before the flip and it started a 30 minute exposure.

I hit abort session, waited for the main page to come back. Went into the light frames page and adjusted the frames to remove those already taken east of the meridan (1st target of the night) and then did an update to that target. I then went to the targets page and hit reset times. All the times went to the current time. Flipped to the run session page and back to targets and the times were fine.

Paul Howard

ccdap20070102_182013.log (21 KB, 100 downloads)

Paul,

This seems to be an elusive thing to track down. please zip your profile and target list so I can attempt to reproduce the problem you are seeing.

John,

Here is the requested data. I reproduced it tonight (hit the same issue with focus and an exposure starting that wouldn't finish before the meridan flip). So here is exactly what I did:

1) session running with 1st exposure of 1st target in process
2) abort session
3) wait for main screen to regain focus
4) select light frames page
5) decrement count for 1st sequence of 1st target
6) update
7) select targets page
8) reset times - all times (start and end) for all targets go to the current time.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if there is anything else you want me to try.

btw - Any thoughts about checking the time to meridian flip just before starting the exposure ?

Thanx,

Paul Howard

reset-time-test.zip (14 KB, 20 downloads)

Paul,

Thanks for the detailed report. I was able to reproduct the problem and it is corrected in the next maintenance release, 3.30.6, which should be available for web update 1/09.

I need to spend some more time thinking about when to check the meridian flip time - there is a lot going on and there are a lot of users. I need to be careful on such a potentially invasive change.

John,

Thanx

One other thing I noticed - on the flat frame screen, if you specify a PA such as 306.8w, the field box is not wide enough (306.8e is fully displayed).

Have you given any thought to some way to coordinate flat frame configuration with the light frames? I find I have to write down information from the light frame page (which filter and PA combinations) and from the target page (timing of the targets) to have the data I need to fill in the flat frame page.

Thanx again,

Paul Howard

Paul,

I think anything less than a degree for flat rotation is imperceptible - indeed probably anything less than 10 degrees may be challenging to see. Nevertheless, I opened it up a bit.

Originally I had hoped to coordinate flat and light frames but a general solution for all possible conditions is not possible. If someone is doing multiple targets with multiple filters at multiple rotations on both sides of the meridian, there just isn't enough twilight time to get it all in, at least with current camera download times. I'll keep it on the wish list, though.

Thanx