Planning Tools Release Candidate

Hello Ken,

Great job on your planning tool. I can see that it’s going to be very useful. I know you’ve got lots on your plate, but I have a couple of suggestions. One very easy, and one a little harder.

  1. Maybe this is machine specific, but when the "Target Setting"s box opens, it appears to be centered on the screen. When I open the “Planning Tool” it extends down to the right off the screen. It would be nice if the “Settings Window” opened up in the upper left of the screen, and when the “Planning Tool” opened it would fit the screen.

  2. I think it would be great if another " instance" of the “Planning Tool” was available for use under the “Tools” menu. I often take my setup to remote sites and like to set up my sequences weeks before I travel. If I could open the “Framing Wizard” and the “Planning Tool” and be able to enter the trip date it would be great.

Thanks for listening (reading),

Bob

Hey guys,

Been out of AP for awhile but getting back in the swing of things. V3 is looking great!

The planning tool really took me some time to figure out. I think the initial problems I had were due to location not being applied; I think I have that figured out now. Thoughts:

  • Recommend or don’t see an easy way to apply a user profile to a sequence – say, if I didn’t have one already assigned. If I assign an equipment profile, it then added my default user profile. Maybe another menu item to add user profile? (Right now just says “Add Profile to Sequence…” might need one for equipment, and one for user.
  • Maybe rename user profile to location profile?
  • It’s not obvious that clicking the “i” opens the planner. When I see “i”, I think info or help.
  • The planner window seems to have odd placement, often too far right and can’t easily manipulate. Might be due to RDP / screen resolution. There should be a way to close/drag it other than clicking OK, like a standard window / close button.
  • Moon info slightly wrong – saying first quarter (should be waxing gibbous – but illum % looks right), rise time is correct but set time might not be: saying it sets a 2:21am, which sky safari also says in its info panel, however, it doesn’t actually set until after 3am, so I’m puzzled by this because when I advance the time in sky safari, it clearly doesn’t set until after 3am. Moon Calendar, Skytools, Observatory, all show the 3am+ time as well. [EDIT: just realized set time may be for previous/current day instead of tomorrow? If so, might make sense, if moon has already set, to show the next set time?]

That’s it for now! Thx!

I agree with number 3 “It’s not obvious that clicking the “i” opens the planner. When I see “i”, I think info or help.” I think what you need is an "Expand >> " button.

Trees and Other Obstructions

I love the new planner, but it won’t really work for me with the high trees (all the way up to 88 degrees due west) around my observatory. But I think this could be solved if the planner just incorporated a local horizon file into its calculations. Right now it works fine with low elevation obstructions, because those can be dealt with by the altitude limits, but for high elevation obstructions and targets near zenith, the altitude limits aren’t fine enough. So for now I’m back to manually adjusting my start-stop times each session.

Hey folks, thank you for all the feedback here. I apologise for not being able to respond to each of you, but, rest assured, I have read through all the feedback. Some of it will be applied in time for the 3.0 release and some of it is awesome, but will be applied to a future release (when we have some time to stabilize the basic functionality). I am hoping that the planning tool, as it matures, serves as a solid foundation for far more complex (and automated) sequencing. Things like working with a list of sequences and targets to make decisions about what to capture and when. Of course, in order to do this, you will be able to specify all sorts of personal data that better describes your unique constraints. Stay tuned…

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no worries Ken, no need to answer. keep going the way you are. And happy xmas to you all