Andy and Pfile suggested adding the ability to pause if there’s a gap between targets, like if you have to wait before the next target rises above the trees. We could do this by creating a “dummy” target that has no events, but if the guider starts up and doesn’t find a guide star, I think you’re hosed. Is that what happens? Or does SGP just sit a wait if there aren’t any images to be taken of this target? Right now I solve this by making sure my dummy target will have a guide star in my OAG’s FOV, but that’s work I could do without if there’s a better way.
The better way is to actually implement this gracefully and I’m pretty sure it’s in the backlog somewhere behind AF and multi-camera support.
For now, the best way to do this is probably to find a target that will actually be visible low in the east (keep the scope away from the meridian) and take a single exposure until the target you are after is visible… or several might be better so AF runs periodically (you also might need to contend with a camera’s max exposure length). Really depends on how long you need to stall.
Right now, targets with no events are skipped.
Ideally, we will find a user-friendly way to optionally stop tracking between targets so the mount is safe and the camera is not forced to do unnecessary work. This might come at the same time we refactor target start / stop to add more options than clock time.