Force start at given time

samsaika

Although I send a request with Force start at given time, but it was not started as scheduled. Becuase the session was for comet 2022 E3, the starting time was very important. However, someone another user's request overrieded my request. Request management is not relyable and I am very upset.

lukas_demetz

Hi samsaika ,
as we discussed this yesterday you found a bug in our client software (the one connecting the webserver with the single observatories). Thanks to your input we were able to fix this and it should now work again.

In fact, we found two correlating bugs, but should be fine now 🙂

UjvarosiB

lukas_demetz
Hi!
It seems like there is something similar going on again now. Earlier in the evening I have submitted a request for the Tecnosky RC8, and set a fixed starting time (as the target was a comet). The imaging began as scheduled, but after 4 frames it spontaneously switched to some other user's session (I have checked the schedule before, and there wasn't any other event shown around this time). Now I have 4 frames out of the planned total of 40, and as I write this, the time window for my session ends soon (as the comet will go below observatory horizon), so even if the system switches back to my request now it will not be able to complete. These files (all LUM) are not much use to me as I wanted to do a longer session with LRGB to try to reveal the faint tail on a final color image (continuing the session on another night is not an option, because the comet will move to a different background, it needs to be completely remade). If you can take the time to look into this, it would be much appreciated! It seems like two days from now there are chances for clear evening again, if you manage to fix the issue in the meantime, I might give it another go then 🙂

lukas_demetz

Yeah the issue is simple, actually: The guider kept failing, until the system let it go 🙁 This is an issue where we cannot do much other than try to fix the guider, in this case...

UjvarosiB

I get it. Has it something to do with the position of the target? So maybe it will be better for now to not try to image that comet (relatively low on the NW horizon), and just wait until it becomes visible on the southern hemisphere, and then use one of the southern systems?

lukas_demetz

UjvarosiB It could be that we hit a horizon limit. On the website we show an approximation, but if during the acquisition the target hits one constraint then it will stop there. I am investigating, please bear with me as I have a smallish issue on the FSQ in Namibia 🙂

UjvarosiB

OK, no problem 🙂 I'm just trying to guess, but have no much knowledge on these kind of issues. Thank you for looking into it, I understand that keeping things working all the time is not an easy task.

UjvarosiB

In the meantime I checked the front page and it says that the limiting altitude is between 25° and 35° for that scope, so it could be very well that my target simply got too low (I took the value of 20° shown in the request generator for reference and thought that if my session ends with the target a few degrees above this it will be fine).

lukas_demetz

Yeah, confirmed... it went under the observatory limit... Will need to raise it in the settings to make it a little more visible

UjvarosiB

Then it seems I have to wait until this comet re-appears in the south as it is too low for observation (and getting lower every day) here in the north. I'm glad though that it wasn't a failure of the system, just me not paying enough attention when planning the imaging 🙂

lukas_demetz

heh fair enough, at least in Namibia the rainy season (which was way below average, btw) is coming to an end 🙂