Development Path?

Sequence Generator
1

Hello Jared and Ken (mainly),
I would like to know what is on the horizon for SGP. Releases have gone very quiet since the upgrade to v.3. I am a huge fan of the software - couldn’t do what I do without it these days - and am just curious to know what you guys are up to with development at the moment and what enhancements we have to look forward to. I promise I won’t touch on the question of when new versions will be released, so please don’t worry about that!
Many thanks,
Gav.

2

Things that are actively in development right now:

  • Better notifications
  • Automatic sequence restart on “Safe”
  • Occasional INDI work
  • Bug fixes

Thanks,
Jared

3

Hi Jared,
Thank you for that list. I am a big fan of the second item and very much look forward to a beta release that contains that new functionality! Good luck with progress.
Thanks,
Gav.

4

The second item, ’ * Automatic sequence restart on “Safe”’, would be much appreciated. Lack of this feature has been plaguing me a lot.

1 Like
5

I’d still love to see debayered preview. I picked up a ASI094c and have been forced to use sharpcap with this feature since I got the camera.

Thanks for adding the “SLAVE” dome button on the dock.

6

Woo-hoo! Glad to see this on the list. Are you planning on having the notification endpoint more flexible? While some use GNS, I’ve found it not suitable for me. I would really love to see an option for pushover or pushbullet.

Gabe

7

The second item will be very welcome. In so doing, I’m assuming you will be looking at the resume logic. It is the one area where, if I abort a sequence, I have to go through a reset process to ensure that hitting run again does not leave anything behind (especially PHD2).
I know it’s simple, but recalling the last sequence when you power up SGP in the current beta is a welcome tweak.

1 Like
8

Not at the moment. It’s more of a pop-up style of notification. Info here:

Yes, naturally this is where the difficulty lies. I’ve been running off of the same “start sequence” click for about 2 weeks now out at MaRIO. Each clear night SGP has started at my start time (or when safe) imaged until unsafe and successfully restarted when conditions were safe again. The current implementation is rather dumb but is proving to work fairly well.

  • If unsafe stop and run the end of sequence events
  • Reset the sequence (essentially using the “Reset Sequence - Preserve Progress” option)
  • Restart the sequence and immediately enter a wait loop for the safety device to report safe for 5 minutes.
  • Once the above has occurred it’s essentially a “normal” start sequence.
  • If unsafe…goto top.

I believe when I initially mentioned this feature it came with a fairly large caveat that “if you can click ‘Run Sequence’ and nothing else at the beginning of the night then this will work for you…if not it won’t”. That is very much still the case. So if there is a guiding restart issue you’ll want to figure out what is causing that before this will be workable. I have a couple more loose ends to tie up with the restart but it should hopefully see the light of day in 2ish weeks (in a beta).

Thanks,
Jared

9

thanks Jared. Plenty of opportunity to stress test the beta in the UK at the moment :wink:

10

Jared,
Your progress with ‘restart sequence on safe’ sounds very impressive. I look forward to the beta release and as Buzz suggests, here in the UK we will be able to give it a proper workout at the moment, the weather is ‘up and down like a whores draws’!!
Thanks,
Gav.

11

Just a thought / question about the sequence resume or start on clear - does this take the Moon into account at all? It would be ideal to set a threshold of how much Moon to tolerate, if any…
Thanks,
Gav.

12

To deal with the moon, why not set your start/stop times to avoid the moon?

13

Jmacon, absolutely that will get round the Moon. Though as a truly lazy imager, I am always on the lookout for an increasingly hands-off approach!!

14

It is a shame that my AAG cloudwatcher uses the less sensitive version of the TSL light to frequency converter. If they used the one in the SQM’s (from the same chip family), it would be possible to use an ‘ok to image’ ASCOM status based on lighting levels - and hence take care of the moon.