with the transition to the Advanced version, I have so much meat on the fire that I am wasting a lot, it’s time to organize a methodology and need your help.
My equipment:
10micron GM2000HPS with side by side dual plate
Celestron Edge14HD (ASI 2600MC + Hyperstar = 716mm/fl)
Tec140 (QSI 6120 RGB-HA-OIII = 980mm/fl)
I managed to center the two telescopes to get 500s unguided with perfectly round stars
My goal to reach:
Assign to the two telescopes the most suitable targets of the season/period, so I want a Plannig Tools (ex: Deep-Sky Planner8, TheSkyx + Camera plugin, Astro Planner) that allows me to import the targets to Voyager, a planning tools that is able to decide (obviously preconfigured with my local conditions), the filter and exposure times by subject to abtain the best of that night switching from profile1 to profile2.
Thank you for reading, waiting for your advice
Geremia
Geremia - I think maybe I am having the same problem. The RoboTarget algorithm seems to be working really well, I probably need ot do more testing to make sure the business logic works as expected, but now I have become greedy and want to setup my next year’s worth of targets into RoboTarget and just sit back and collect the data!
But it’s also easy to get out of control with RoboTarget Manager (at least for me) - I am not sure how to organise the setup of the Base Sequences and Sets for easiest manageability. eg: Should I create sets by Months, Galaxies vs Nebula, Long vs Short focal length, etc.
My experience so far tells me that I should organise by Month off the year (effectively RA), that way I can disable the things I know will NOT be rising above 30’ for the evening (that usually means only 3 months or so are enabled - the rest can be disabled and NOT clutter up the RoboTarget progress window, which gets REALLY full once you’ve got more than 8 targets).
After that I am finding that I want to create Moon-up and Moon-down “Subsets” (this isn’t possible at the moment - so I have to create two targets in the same month with the same name - one for Narrowband (moon up) and one for Moon down (broadband).
That way I can quickly Enable targets that are going to rise that evening (to reduce the clutter), have RoboTarget determine the optimal filters to use (Narrowband if Moon up, Broadband if down) and the best target for the time (priority x altitude).
What is “missing” for me in RoboTarget Manger is having access to the lovely ephemeris graph that you see once RoboTarget starts running - ideally I coudl use RoboTarget Manager to help me visualise what’s up and down and maybe even automatically create groups for me based on what’s “up” this month (as you say many tools like Kstars and Telescopius so this for you - but there’s a lot of cutting and pasting and generally boring stuff).
Sorry long, probably useless reply, but your question spoke to my own journey.
Hi Paul, it seems we are in the same boat, in the end, I am thinking of reducing the number of objects to avoid being greedy and incur indigestion , thanks to a cloudy moments, I’m finding a bit of time to set optimally Deep Sky Planner 8 to bring out those groups of objects per month and subjects, then, I just need to build a good dragcript in order to switch from Telescope 1 to Telescope 2.
It would be nice a functionality in Robo Target Manager where you can connect, as we do now locally, and draw the targets already created and added from time to time by the Advanced Community
I am also greedy I am with 39 active targets in my RoboTargets. Currently I am not creating any subgroups, so all in the same active group. I am simply making:
the ones I really want to finish as First/High priority
All other LRGB targets to Medium
All O-iii targets to Low
All H-alpha targets to Very Low
I do wish there’s a sorting mechanism that for the same priority class, sort to prioritize the “early” targets.
You can try to add max shot time constraints to target not having First/High priority, for example slot of 1 hour. This will spread data on more target and popup the First/High target in execution.
Anyway like I said more scheduler will come, one for HA. And the Skip Ahead priority.
All the best
Leonardo
This will never possible, constraints are for target and not for filters.
I just write this post, probably can help on some way:
Telescopius as a basic planning tool as it gives daily and yearly ephemeris data and basic framing tools. Telescopius lists can be imported into RoboClip. Add notes on each for optimal months based on the yearly ephemeris data in Telescopius say Feb-Mar. I have two groupings in RoboClip for Advanced Targets, one for broadband and another for narrowband.
Refine RoboClip Target framing in Web Dashboard and update the RoboClip Co-ordinates.
In Target Manager I have created sets for the current month FebBB and FebNB and the next couple of months (disabled) I then add targets from RoboClip based on the optimal month notes. I limit each month to 5 targets initially but make sure they are of varying RA give a full night of imaging over the period. Some targets may appear in more than one month. Add constraints based on HA, moon, altitude and limit time on target.
I have dummy shots setup for BB and NB and copy and paste these to each target. I tend to set a high number of shots as I would rather collect too much data than the setup being inactive.
If I am getting through the month and leaving a target behind, only then will I up it’s priority, with only five targets it’s easy to keep track of.
If the cloud gods are unusually friendly, it’s easy to add a target, bring one forward from the following month etc.
First time out with advanced I overloaded it with targets but that required an overdose of caffeine to keep track of.
We all are talking without a daily report.
I’m sure when I will add this will be an help to understand.
I’m working on moon constraints and data backup, I hope to release today/tomorrow .
After I will add the daily report and the overall report for target (list with the progress) RoboTarget Manager Side.
If I set a target with “maximum sequencer time for night” to be 1 hour, and after imaging for 1 hour the RoboTarget search and cannot find any other suitable targets, will it restart this target, or it will skip this one as we set it to have maximum 1 hour for tonight?
Looking forward to the expanded moon constraints. I will hopefully have a chance to test that early next week if they are ready by then. I will be hoping to gather some RGB data on a target before moonrise before changing over to HA on the same target for part of the rest of the night and using the maximum time for the night to then force it to move on to another.
This is a helpful discussion - my instincts are that I should break down my RoboTargets by month, disable those that won’t rise during that night.
I think this could probably be automated one day though, Voyager can probably calculate this for me and automatically filter down to just "what’s rising tonight.
The next step would be to streamline the integration of RoboClip and RoboTarget - I have already got my targets broken down groups of Month and NB vs BB in RoboClip, but it’s a bit too clunky for me jumping between the two.
In RoboClip for example, I would love to “Right Click” on a target and “Add to RoboTarget” and then I can easily add the shots I want.
If I could add one more comment, I feel like the Planner is the key to me - help me plan my work, then automate the capture and report on progress. I think this is where the AstroImagingPlanner integration is meant to be going, but I guess I need to ask @AstroGabe
Also RoboClip and RoboTarget … you cannot add a target to RoboTarget from RoboClip without adding data. You have a roboclip facility inside target to select the object and transfer the store data, try it.
Integration with Gabe will be on data grading not on target selection.
I sincerely think you doesn’t understand exactly the powerful of the Scheduler if you have all this request and doubt. Are the constraints choosing the target, not a manually operation.
Yes, the stand alone planner I’m writing will not integrate w/ Voyager for target selection in an automatic way. As Leo says, I’m working on integration of data grading.
Automatic data grading was a question on yesterday’s Voyager webinar on iTelescope.net. I mentioned that it was being worked on by third parties - thanks for your efforts Gabe!
, thanks to a cloudy moments, I’m finding a bit of time to set optimally Deep Sky Planner 8 to bring out those groups of objects per month and subjects, then, I just need to build a good dragcript in order to switch from Telescope 1 to Telescope 2.
I am with 39 active targets in my RoboTargets. Currently I am not creating any subgroups, so all in the same active group. I am simply making: