PRISM automated observation improvements and auto focus

[ALPHA_OBS2021]

Good Morning PRISM,
This is Prof. Mabson from Capitol Technology University, we recently added AAG Cloudwatcher into PRISM and noticed some interesting responses when in automated observations operations.

Current Observatory Setup:
Dome: NextDome, with Beaver controller
Mount: Celestron CGX
Scope: Celestron C11 configured with Hyperstar
Camera: ZWO-1600MM (main) and 1290-mini (guide)
Weather: AAG Cloud-watcher and SOLO
PRISM Version: 32-bit 11.4.19.39
Focuser: Celestron auto focuser

Automated Operations using AAG:
--- On Monday 11/7 we integrated AAG cloud watcher solo into PRISM and see weather and cloud data in the software. When we got into cloud coverage the software suspended the session and parked and closed the dome. One area that would be a nice enhancement when a pause is caused by weather is: 1) Adding the ability to force the dome to park at a given position, in our configuration we can only open ~4 times before we lose power, this would allow us to recharge. 2) Add the ability to increase the amount of time the software will hold when bad weather clears instead of the default 5 minutes. 3) Have the ability to tell the software how many times the software will pause a session before ending the session due to weather. 4) add the ability to say when to close the dome (cloud vs rain).

--- When the session restarted we noticed that the automated session picked up the image count, in our example we configured the system to image 330x when we restarted we were at image #112. However, the automated system on the image count message mentioned image (1/330), instead of (112/330). I restarted the session, renamed the target , and modified the reminder count. The bug here is to ensure that automated sessions currently pick-up the next sequence and display the correct remaining images.

--- At the end of our sessions we typically have prism perform morning flats, we will make an adjustment to the cloud watcher to not flag day-time till later but what we are noticing is that when in flats generation we also get a bad weather condition (due to daylight, expected) but then I can't close the automated observations window and it just repeats "please wait, closing". My intern waited for 30 minutes and it never closed and we just had to exit prism. This has occurred each morning.


Auto-Focus:
---- I think we resolved this, but when we perform auto focus in automated observation we sometimes are getting Barycenter failures, I think we resolved this by increasing the exposure in our example 10-seconds (we are currently narrowband imaging). Anything else we can do to prevent a barycenter failure during focusing?

---- On Night 10/09 during an automated run when automated focusing started, I have my star range between 9 and 10.5 mag but the system selected a 20mag star, this caused my the reminder of my images to be out of focus
"[Foc] Selected star RA=23h21m20s, DEC=+60 58'15'' Mag=20.0"

---- One improvement, after a auto focus is completed have the system take another focus image at some user value and compare and the image has a FWH higher than the original reset back to the original setting or refocus again.

Web Cam interface:
--- Would be a nice to have if PRISM could interface with a webcam so the user can view operations without having to switch between windows.

See below for artifacts, the link will stay active for 30-days.
Thanks Again

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[dan_adrian]

Auto-Focus:
---- I think we resolved this, but when we perform auto focus in automated observation we sometimes are getting Barycenter failures, I think we resolved this by increasing the exposure in our example 10-seconds (we are currently narrowband imaging). Anything else we can do to prevent a barycenter failure during focusing?

---- On Night 10/09 during an automated run when automated focusing started, I have my star range between 9 and 10.5 mag but the system selected a 20mag star, this caused my the reminder of my images to be out of focus
"[Foc] Selected star RA=23h21m20s, DEC=+60 58'15'' Mag=20.0"

---- One improvement, after a auto focus is completed have the system take another focus image at some user value and compare and the image has a FWH higher than the original reset back to the original setting or refocus again.

Web Cam interface:
--- Would be a nice to have if PRISM could interface with a webcam so the user can view operations without having to switch between windows.

See below for artifacts, the link will stay active for 30-days.
Thanks Again

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

1. I sometimes get barycentre failure too, when a star is very out of focus. Most likely you need to adjust the box around the star.
2. There is an option in automatic observation, in the focusing tab, called "Check focus before applying new focus position, previous might be better". This will prevent an out of focus new position.
3.Depending on your setup and your filters you need too play with the range of mags for single star focusing.
You can use the automatic focus outside the automatic observations, and note the focus configuration for each filter. Then use that information in automatic observations and save the configuration.

4.I'm pretty sure Prism can handle a webcam since it connects to many cameras including direct show ... but I can't advise more since I have no experience.

Hope this helps,
Have a nice evening.

[ALPHA_OBS2021]

Update:
Barycenter Failure:
I think we have managed to resolve this issue, we adjusted the end-stop of the focus range to be: 13510 vs 13583 when looking more closely at the V-curve we were more on the right side than was optimum. The next adjustment was to select: "Center Focus Auto" on the focus tab, even before adjusting the focus range over 10 automated start/stop's we never got another barycenter failure. I also decreased our hdf center box from 35 down to 5 pixels. Our final update to prevent the auto focus from selecting a star that was to small even though we had it set in the focus section to select from 9 to 10.5. We increased the Min ADU to 350. The combination of all 3 has led to much improvement in the auto focus.

Suggestion:
--- Auto Adjust HDF to fit star
--- Have the ability for PRISM to perform a blind auto focus range, based on the v-curve

In terms of the bad weather, our current work-around is to de-select dome closer for both automated end and error management this ensure that we don't run out of shutter power and unable to closer.

[ALPHA_OBS2021]

Also, we have been running the updated config since Friday Oct 18 and we reviewed the auto_logs since and have detected no barycenter failures or out of focus stars.