Starting a Sequence when the clouds part?

Sequence Generator Accepted Unplanned
#1

In the event options, I know that I can park the telescope if the sequence terminates or aborts due to the ASCOM safety monitor.
Is there a way to start off SGP when it cloudy and have the opposite occur, in so much that it waits for the start time, or an OK to image status (whichever is later) and then starts off the sequence. There are quite a few nights which start of cloudy but clear up later on. My cloud detector can operate the roof, providing the scope is in the park position but I’m not sure if I can start things up in advance of good imaging conditions. I would prefer not to start generating vbs scripts but I will if I have to.

The obvious next question will be - can the recovery mode be extended to look out for ‘ok to image’ status beyond the 90 minutes? In that way, it could pick up again later on.

#2

No, there isn’t. Great feature request idea though. I’ll move it for you.

Feature request (as I understand it): start sequence if weather sensor reports ‘clear’ for x minutes.

#3

thanks for that -

I have never used the VBScipt event options before. At the start of the first event of a sequence, do you know if they execute before SGP auto-connects the equipment or checks the safety monitor? I need to make sure that the mount does not try to home when it connects with a closed roof.

I know if you start a sequence the safety monitor can kick in and run the end of sequence options. I’m hoping that if I run a VBS to monitor the safety monitor first, it will ensure the sequence sets off with clear dry conditions.

Clearly my goal is to look at the weather forecast and set SGP going if it looks likely that there will be a clear night sky. SGP would start imaging when the clouds part, image until the end time, end of sequence or the clouds roll in. It would continue to monitor the OK to image and do the recovery actions if the clouds parted again. When I woke up in the morning, I would have a nice little folder of FITS files and a dry telescope!

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#4

All event based scripts are run during the sequence. This means you have a valid sequence, all gear is up and running. The safety monitor is checked all the time in the background.

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#5

@Ken Thanks for that. I am assuming I cannot start up SGP and start a sequence with a remote program or script. That being true, my prior feature request, to start an image sequence either at a starting time, or when the weather is suitable, I think would be a wonderful idea and a simple reflection of the existing SGP features that exist for end of sequence and Not OK for imaging sequence termination.

#6

There is a scripting program that Lorence raves about that allows you to do that. Check out 'Auto Hot Keys".

http://www.autohotkey.com/

#7

All a great idea. In fact, along with that, my suggestion at:

Temperature based focus

Would work well with that type of situation.

It also might be useful to tie this to start times for targets so that if an object had gone too low by the time the clouds cleared it would move to the next object instead, one that would be higher.

#8

Right, it is not easy to do that currently. J&K have an “accepted unplanned” feature request to facilitate automation by outside apps. I currently use AutoIt for that purpose, but it’s not a pretty solution.

Andy

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#9

yeah, that would be great!

Andy

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#10

@Andy - yes I don’t want to do clumsy external programming. It needs to be robust to work within an ASCOM environment and be robust to changes in SGP. I’m still at the concrete stage for my obsy, so plenty of time to work on a solution. :smile:

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#11

It’s a fantastic request, that I used with other software.

I have AAG Cloud watcher and it works OK with SGP.
When an Unsafe condition, it closes the roof and finish the sequence.
But when the weather conditions are OK again, it doesn’t resume the sequence.

It would be nice for a future release!
Thanks
Fernando

#12

It would be great if it did this. Thanks! Rick