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Observing Plan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Observing Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Slew/Centering Performance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dome Slewing Performance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Night Sky Summary Plot Top axis: Sky Brightness at Zenith (in ADU/s) Lefthand axis: Local Time (hh LT). Righthand axis: Sun Altitude (degs) |
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Pre-Session Weather Forecast (AstroWeather 1.7.8) Cloudy for most of night with skies potentially clearing at 03:00, low probability of any significant rain (As it turned out the evolving forecast through the late evening extended the cloud further and further through the night, and indeed it was cloudy for the the whole night, only clearing at around 06:30 after the sun has risen. A few spots of rain occurred at around 00:45 and 02:40) |
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Session Event Log | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Session 700 used a new version of AstroMain which contains a number of new
processes/routine, and it useful to document the changes.
The overall aim
is increase the independance of different parts of the program and reduce
chnaces that a problem in one part of the program causes another part to freeze.
Obs. Overseer is a new Threaded Process loop under the
umbrella of the Manager Object that is initiated and stopped at the same time as
the Obs.Manager. It's purpose is to provide high level monitoring of
Obs.Manager and Job Queue. and specifically to recognise and log when the
Observatory Manager freezes. The process also used to action specific tasks
(some formerly actioned within the Observatory Manager loop, others are new)
either calling routines directly to perform the tasks or via the setting of
flags to trigger tasks managed by a further threaded process loop called
Obs.Worker.
At the moment it actions the following
-
WriteLiveHeaderJs. This outputs of 'System.Header.js'
file that describes the Session to Javascipt running in the Current Session
Webpage
- bCaptureObsManagerTab & .
This flag triggers the collection of screen-captures of the Obs.Manager tab and
the
- bCaptureSkyConditionsTab. This flag trggers the
collection of a screen capture of the Sky Condition tabs
-
bUpdateSynopsisFields. This flag triggers the writing of various
Observatory,Weather and Envirnonment data
-
WriteLatestLiveLogs. This generates Session.latest
(run).log & Session.latest (report).htm containing the
more recent log/report messages
- SendObsStatusToFile()
. This generate a small file to pass key information to AstroGuard
- CreateObsManagerChart. Placeholder for code to draw a
suitably designed chart with Obs.Manager and other data,
- Checks status of Job Queue by looking a IamALive Queue / messages for
potential overruns during Job Queue execution.
- Checks status of
Observatory Manager
- Check status of UI
Obs.Worker is a new threaded Process loop under the umbrella
of the Manager Object and like the Obs.Overseer thread is initiated and stopped
at the same time as the Obs.Manager. It's purpose is to perform listen to flag
settings ad perofrm specific tasks (some formerly actioned within the
Observatory Manager loop, others are new) either calling routines directly to
perform the tasks or via the setting of flags to trigger tasks managed by a
further threaded process loop called Obs.Worker.
-
bCaptureObsManagerTab & . Calls
objConsole.RunCaptureObsMangerTab() &
objConsole.RunCaptureServicesPanel()
to capture specific tabs/panels
in AstroMain for uploading to website
-
bCaptureSkyConditionsTab. Calls
objConsole.RunCaptureSkyConditionsTab to capture views of the Sky
Condition tabs
- bUpdateSynopsisFields. Calls objConsole.UpdateSynopsisFields
ReportQueueManager is a new thread Process loop that
continuously looks for new items in the qReport queue and write them to
the txtLogBox console.
Items are added to the queue in ReportComment,
AddComment routines etc by the command qReport.Enqueue('string to be
written')
and then in the queue manager if qReport.Count > 0 then
AppendTextBox(qReport.Dequeue)
Observations
a) The Obs.Manager freezes during the
following operations
- Connecting Scope / Telescope (5s)
- Set
Tracking Off (5s)
- Parking Dome (36s +)
- Parking Telescope
(39s +)
- Closing Down Cameta (30s +)
b) The UI stops responding for
around 5s -10s at a time on 3 occasions during 'Start Services')
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After creating a new session, setting the Observatory to
Fully Automated Mode, and seeing an Observing Plan created and loaded the
Observatory Manager proceeded to close down the observatory and finish the
session, 5 secs after starting to open the Shutter.
After
entering the Equilibrating State at
22:21 and commanding the shutter to open, the Observatory Manague
issued a "Critical Light " and 'Critical Sun Alt Alerts. SunAlt was
reported to be of -0.8. and this would have automatically triggered the
Critcial Light Alert regardlesss of the light meter reading since a sun alt
value of -0.8 might indicate approaching Dawn). The actual sun
altitude at the time was -26 deg. After restarting the
Software and unparking the telescope (by power-cycling the scope using the
UPB PowerBox Program), the session was successfully re-started.
During the original session creation , the plan generation happened pretty fast (just
27s, due to code/target improvements) .
The Observatory Manager was
started at 20:18. During initialisation of the main Observatory Loop
the Sun Alt is obtained from TheSky6 (This should have been the correct
number of -25.7 deg if TheSky6 was using the Computer Clock which it
nornally does when it starts up) and LastSunAlt is set to
vcNull. Within the Main Loop, a new Sun Alt value is fetched every
30s. For first minute or so whilst the Observatory was in Manual mode,
the Sun Alt is obtained from Synopsis.SunAlt provided that the published
Synopsis time is < 2 minutes old. After moving to Fully-Automated Mode, at
20:20 Sun Alt is obtained from TheSky6 (unless Observatory State
is 'Running') . LastSunAlt is set to SunAlt at the end of
code section, ready for the next cycle of the loop. It would
seem SunAlt was read as ~ -25.7 at some stage (and copied to
LastSunAlt) before taking on the value of -0.8 before the next cycle, since
at 22:21 the Obs Manager produced the message. "Sun has reached SunAlt
of -2 degs" which is produced by the condition 'If LastSunAlt < -2 And
SunAlt >= -2 Then'.
So why did SunAlt take on the value -0.8 ?
The most probable explanation is that Sun Alt was read from TheSky during a
moment that AstroPlan Schedule Builder had set TheSky6 time to either near
sunset or near sunrise in order to collect Sun/Moon data for the night.
Because the Schedule Building was very quick there was no time for Obs.
Manager to get a 'new' correct Sun Lat before the Shutter was opened at
which point the SunAlt Alert was triggered lead to closin the shutter and
shutting down the Observatory.
When the AstroMain program was
restarted the original V1 plan was loaded directly without the steps
manipulating the time/date in TheSky6, and hence the issue
wasn't seen the second time around.
Issue was fixed 2019-09-27 (AstroMain 3.12.3) by modifying code to get a fresh SunAlt value from TheSky6 after loading the Observing Plan and before moving to 'Starting' State.
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This Web Page: | Notes - Session 700 (2019-09-26) |
Last Updated : | 2024-10-09 |
Site Owner : | David Richards |
Home Page : | David's Astronomy Web Site |