It would be nice to have time constraints at the event level. So I can work around moonlit hours. For instance, tonight I only need about 10 more Ha frames that I can start at 11pm. The rest are Lum frames I want to shoot with moon down and that does not happen until 4am. So in this case SGP would wait until 4am to shoot the Lum frames. Perhaps parking the scope in-between?
The only way to really do this now is to have separate NB and Broadband targets and using the existing time constraints at the target level. Or is the accepted approach to it currently? If this is the path forward, how do I handle the scope in between the targets with 4+ hours to wait?
It’s certainly a good idea. The sticky parts here are:
What to do about mount tracking during the wait. Nothing, park, stop in place, etc
How would an event time constraint work when the sequence is rotating thru events instead of finishing the entirety of an event before moving to the next? Or would it just be disabled when in rotate mode?
I am certainly not implying that you should solve the items above, those are just notes to future me when I take a look at this.
Maybe Hacky Workarounds
As you mentioned, splitting into a new target could work and SGPro has plenty of easy-to-use copy / move functionality for events.
Another item that might work is to use the pre-event scripting mechanism and write a simple script (or have AI write it for you) that does nothing but spin / block until the time you want. For example, make a simple script and, when you want to await a specific time, you add the path to the script like c:\my-wait-script.vbs 0400. SGPro will block the sequence until the script finishes and then continue. In terms of mount management, you could also select the option to park as a pre-event option. I think resuming should automatically resume the mount tracking and recover the sequence (I would need to test this very specific path) or, if safe, the mount could continue tracking to minimize the time to get back on target.
Thanks for your thoughts on this Ken. I do understand all the moving parts and decisions that need to be sorted out. You almost need another layer/module that acts like a project manager where rules are defined and then applied at the overall sequence level, then target, and finally event level. It is for sure something that will take thought and be a fairly big lift on the code side or even how SGP is architected.
Is there any documentation on the schema of sequence files? Looking at it, the JSON structure look pretty self explanatory. I wrote an imaging project manager software for myself that helps keep track of current/future targets. I can envision adding the ability to look at the current/future target list and generate a sequence file for the night that optimizes target(s)/events(s) order based off moon set/rise/object altitude. At least it would take the manual ui edits out of the picture.