How would you do it with Advance

To the group,
While it is clear to me on how Advance makes our imaging life for pretty pictures great, I also want to do science. Imaging one object (like …exoplanets) for a significant block of the evening at a specific time kind of defeats the purpose of a scheduler. Taking photometric measurements of a target list composed of variable stars seems to be a good use of a scheduler. For those in the group that are interested in such things what are your thoughts on how you would do it in Advance? What could we suggest that might be beneficial?

1 Like

Hi Jim,

I don’t personally do this type of imaging but it does hold some interest. I am guessing you are familiar with Voyager’s Research & Survey sequence type, which is designed for this type of work, although it is not supported by Voyager Advanced’s scheduler at this time nor is anything planned in the near term. If you are not familiar with it, have a look Research Survey - Voyager Wiki

It has some optimizations to handle doing many targets with a small number of shots each, or repeating those shots every so often during the night.

With the current Voyager Advanced beta, you could define one target with associated shots and constraints for each of your science imaging targets, but you may find it better to just use Research & Survey for now.

I don’t know what Leo’s plans are, if any, for blending scheduler with Research & Survey type sequences. I do know that his plate is overflowing with ideas :slight_smile: so nothing is coming in the near term on this topic. That said, perhaps someday we could see something like Research & Survey sequences as base sequences, with their ability to define lists of targets, and then with the constraints identified in the RoboTarget Manager, the scheduler would pick the order in which to image the targets from the list.

But not soon :slight_smile: !

Cheers,
Rowland

Thanks Rowland. I am familiar with it. I’m just looking for more ways to use Advance.

Hello Jim,

I’ve done photometric observations in the past, the current advance scope isn’t set up with the photometric filters at the moment. But I’m thinking one of many ways would to be a Set dedicated to photometry, or other pursuit, then you could either disable the other sets, or just reserve the science observations to high or first priority. I would think with the appropriate constraints with either time or HA, and dates you could control what runs when. Perhaps others have better ideals.

Lynn

The priority concept is interesting to think about. Currently, I have one scope set up for photometry and another for pictures. I also have the array version of Voyager. I’m going to be interested if there is a way to switch effectively with a dragscript between the two systems in advance. Priority might help. If constraints prevent pretty pictures, can it trigger an event to check if there is a photometry opportunity with the other scope. Possibilities are endless. Of course this is a very “niche” situation.

Clear skies,
Jim

Hi Jim and all,

my idea about is to create a scheduler option for photometric based on other logic if needed.
This is a field (photometry) that I doesn’t know, for research usually the research and survey are used.

So i’m opened if scheduler is the right way.

All the best
Leonardo