David's Astronomy Pages Notes - Session 690 (2019-09-06)

Notes (S689)

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Notes (S691)

	Session Aims & Highlights
	- Observing Result  - Night Summary Plot  - Session Event Log
	Operational Issues
	- Critical Issues (0),  Major Issues (1),  Minor Issues (6),  Continuous Improvement (7)
	Images from 2019-09-06  >>

Session Aims & Highlights (2019-09-06)

Main aims

1. Obs.Manager / Post Cloud StartUp - Check that system can automatically commence a session after clouds / rain risk have passed and skies begin to clear at 03:00 in the morning.
2. New AstroMain version - Check 3.10.8 version of AstroMain containing a big refactoring of TakeFrameJobsQSO routine and several new features/changes
3. Live Data Feed - Check that system is able to feed live data about the current session through to a new web page
4. Mixed Targets - Image selection of targets including Variable Stars, Comets and Deep Sky Targets
5. Software & Systems  - Check stability of software and presence of any side effects following ongoing enhancements to AstroMain and associated support programs.

 
Equipment & Software

• 12" LX200 and ST-10XME
•  80mm APO and ZWO ASI 178MC
•  CCDApp2, TheSky6, CCDSoft5, PHD2,  POTH Hub
•  Pegasus UPB & Motor Focus, TCF-S
   
•  AstroMain 3.10.8,  Astroguard 1.2.3,   AstroPlan 1.9.4,  AstroVOE 1.3.1, UPB 1.4.16  (AstroWeather 1.7.6, AstroAllSky 3.4.5 )

Highlights

• The new version including a lot of changes to TakeFrameJobsQSO ran without major issue and most of the new features are working fine
   
• Second use of Live Feed of Session Status to website

Lowlights

• It was quite windy and the wind or seeing spoiled 2 out 3 targets imaged during the session.   Cloud developed for much of the session.
  Finally when skies cleared again the Session had already closed
  
• The session shutdown earlier than expected (due to a limitation in the Obs.Manager logic)

Summary Plots & Logs

Observing Plan

Observing Result

Night Sky Summary Plot Top axis: Sky Brightness at Zenith (in ADU/s) Lefthand axis: Local Time (hh LT). Righthand axis: Sun Altitude (degs)

Pre-Session Weather Forecast (AstroWeather 1.7.6) 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)

Session Event Log

Time     Event Detail 20:28:09 Session Created Live Session Created (2019-09-06 S00690, ImageSaveNum: 690001) 20:30:32   Obs.Manager Started Obs.Manager started 20:30:39   Services Started Observatory Services started 20:31:27 Observatory (Auto) Observatory placed in Fully-Automated Mode 20:31:30 Session Pending Session pending (2019-09-06) 20:31:32 Session Initiating Session initiating (2019-09-06) 20:31:34   Plan Requested Observing Plan requested from AstroPlan () 20:32:02   Camera1 Connected SBIG Camera Connected (set point -10°C) 20:38:14   Plan Loaded Observing Plan loaded to queue (2019-09-06 V1 BEST PLAN, Plan ID: 330) 20:38:21   Camera1 Connected SBIG Camera Connected (set point -10°C) 20:38:25   Telescope Connected Telescope Connected (TheSky6) 21:04:04 Wait on Weather Waiting for acceptable weather conditions 21:38:32   Shutter Opened Shutter opened (opening time 45s) 21:38:35   Equilibration Started Dome Equilibration started 21:42:32   Equilibration Ended Dome Equilibration ended (4.0 mins total) 21:42:34 Session Running Session running 21:42:36   Queue Started Observing Queue started (25 targets selected) 21:42:38     Target Missed (1/25) Target's time slot was missed (1/25, 68P/Klemola) 21:42:40     Target Missed (2/25) Target's time slot was missed (2/25, GCVS CI Cyg) 21:42:42     Target Missed (3/25) Target's time slot was missed (3/25, NGC 6539) 21:42:44     Target Started (4/25) Target started (4/25, NGC 6645) 21:50:52     Target Started (5/25) Target started (5/25, GCVS FG Sge) 21:52:08 Critical Cloud Alert Critical Cloud Alert (Obs.Manager will close the Shutter) 21:52:10   HardSuspend Called Hard Suspend is called due to Critical Conditions (cloud) 21:52:12   Queue Paused Queue pausing for HardSuspend 21:54:09 Session Suspended Session suspended 21:54:59   Shutter Closed Shutter closed (closing time 49s) 21:55:01   Queue Resumed Queue resumed after HardSuspend (170s) 22:02:19 Session Resuming Session resuming 22:03:04   Shutter Opened Shutter opened (opening time 45s) 22:03:06   Queue Resumed Observing Queue resumed 22:03:08     Target Started (6/25) Target started (6/25, GCVS V Sge) 22:05:10       Focusing Started-Foc1 Foc1 Focusing Started (TCF-S) 22:07:37       Focusing Completed Foc1 AutoFocus Completed (Profile No 1) 22:13:57     Target Completed Target partially completed (6/25, GCVS V Sge) 22:13:59     Target Started (7/25) Target started (7/25, NGC 4157) 22:35:23     Target Completed Target completed (7/25, NGC 4157) 22:35:25     Target Started (8/25) Target started (8/25, NGC 5473) 22:37:34       Focusing Started-Foc1 Foc1 Focusing Started (TCF-S) 22:52:44 Critical Cloud Alert Critical Cloud Alert (Obs.Manager will close the Shutter) 22:52:46   HardSuspend Called Hard Suspend is called due to Critical Conditions (threat of rain) 22:52:49     Target Aborted (8/25) Target aborted (8/25, NGC 5473) due to threat of rain 22:52:51   Queue Paused Queue paused for SoftSuspend 22:52:53   Queue Resumed Queue resumed after SoftSuspend (0s) 22:52:55   Queue Paused Queue pausing for HardSuspend 22:52:57 Session Suspended Session suspended 22:53:44   Shutter Closed Shutter closed (closing time 49s) 22:53:46   Queue Resumed Queue resumed after HardSuspend (55s) 23:03:00   Camera1 SetPoint SBIG Camera Set Point Temperature Updated (new set point -15°C) 23:10:50     Target Cancelled Target cancelled (9/25, NGC 5631) due to wind 23:18:36 Observatory (Manual) Observatory placed in Manual Mode 23:18:41   Queue Aborted Job Queue aborted 23:18:58   Services Stopped Observatory Services stopped 23:19:05 Program Closed Program closed by User 23:20:23 Session Resumed Live Session Resumed (2019-09-06 S00690, ImageSaveNum: 690035) 23:20:32   Obs.Manager Started Obs.Manager started 23:20:39   Services Started Observatory Services started 23:20:53 Observatory (Auto) Observatory placed in Fully-Automated Mode 23:20:54 Session Pending Session pending (2019-09-06) 23:20:56 Session Initiating Session initiating (2019-09-06) 23:20:58   Plan Loaded Observing Plan loaded to queue (2019-09-06 V1 ACTIVE PLAN S690, Plan ID: 330) 23:21:00   Camera1 Connected SBIG Camera Connected (set point -15°C) 23:21:02   Telescope Connected Telescope Connected (TheSky6) 23:21:10 Wait on Weather Waiting for acceptable weather conditions 23:31:11   Camera1 SetPoint SBIG Camera Set Point Temperature Updated (new set point -10°C) 01:50:04 Session Closing Session closing 01:51:07   Dome Parked Dome parked (parking time 58s) 01:52:05   Telescope Parked Telescope parked (parking time 53s) 01:52:55 Session Housekeeping Housekeeping Started (Cleanup FITS, Create Fits Summary, Transfer Files) 01:52:59 Session Finished Session Finished

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Operational Issues (2019-09-06, S690)

• Critical Issues (0)
• Major Issues (1)
  
• Minor Issues (6)
• Continuous Improvement (7)

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Critical Issues

•  None

Major Issues

• The Session unexpectedly shutdown at 01:50. Session had been restarted at  23:20 after installing a update to AstroMain update (to help debug the missing Session.Slew.htm issue).  The plan was due to finish at 02:10 and the 'Continue with New Plan' option was deliberately set so that a new plan would be generated to complete the night.   Due to cloud the session had a prolonged stay at the Waiting on Weather in 'Equilibrating'. Nice clear skies developed at 02:30 and 2 hours of observing time were lost.  It seems that the session was moved to 'Closing' at 01:50 as this was the start time of the final target in the loaded plan (which because of cloud it was obviously going to be unable to be executed).  This is the first time this problem has arisen.
  Resolved 2019-09-07.    Problem is understood and is a limitation of the current Obs.Manager logic.
       (Item is raised again under Continuous Improvement)
  

Minor Issues

• Session Events output to Session.Events_Short.htm are still in HH:mm format.  Event output was due to be changed to HH:mm:ss format in AstroPlan 1.9.4, but the change only happened to the _Full.htm file version.
  Resolved 2019-09-06. AstroPlan 1.9.6
   
• Session.Slew.htm file wasn't being generated at end of each slew/centering operation.  This was a feature that was added in 3.10.7. .  Debug log file output code was added in 3.10.9 but hasn't been run in live session to undertsand the issue. Fixed 2019-09-07 ( SlewFile is copied to a temporary file before its contents are read and used.
  Fixed 2019-09-07 (AdvMain 3.11).
    
• Two targets failed with exception (RPC_E_SERVERFAULT) in Slewing. Targets 4/25 (NGC 6645) and 5/25 (GCVS FG Sge) failed .  Unexpectedly a Print  dialog or similar dialog was open in TheSky6 when the computer was checked.  This dialog was closed and the next 2 targets slewed/centered without any problem.  This is first time this exception has been seen and is probably a one off.  
  RPC_E_SERVERFAULT means that the out-of-process COM server threw a structured (Win32)exception, which could be all sorts of things, such as an Access Violation, Divide by Zero, etc. In other words, there's a bug in the COM server's implementation and there's nothing you can do in your calling application to cure this (unless you can find out what the bug is and can design a way to call the COM component which doesn't execute the buggy code).
  Unable to replicate this exception on Development Laptop when commanding a slew with Print or Print Setup dialong open. 
  Resolved at time by closing the dialog window.  >> User Awareness. 
   
• Slew failures due to exception (RPC_E_SERVERFAULT) didn't lead to  'Target Failed' session events being saved. 
  Target failures are recorded in the Observing Plan ok (' Status:Failure, FailureMode: Slew)
  Code review shows that Target's that failed to other reasons such as Slew error, Below Horizon etc were also not getting a Session event.
  Fixed 2019-09-11 (AdvMain 3.11.1)
   
• Building of the Observing Plan (Schedule) is taking too long.  Log file shows that plan took 6m18s   to create,  of which 22s was used to Choose Target (N=17,496,578) and 5m09s used to Calc Fitness (N=11,311,940).   The speed for each target / each Calc Fitness is small  but the number of accesses to the respective routines is exceptional large and where improvements need to be made. A quick fix has been made by disabling all output to log file to give a 45% reduction in build time.
  Fixed 2019-09-08 (AdvPlan 1.9.8).
   
• 'Now' Line shouldn't appear on plots made by Button Option.   This delayed the creation of the final plots in the morning. This was corrected in AstroPlan 1.9.7 on 2019-09-07. However since then the Now Line is no longer drawn directly on the live plots plot,  but is drawn as an overlay line on the Website Viewer (2019-09-08)
  Resolved 2019-09-07 (AstroPlan 1.9.7)
  

Continuous Improvement 

• Improve 'Queue Resumed after HardSuspend' by changing Event Flag State to Green and adding a ReportLine to section off the preceeding report lines
  Done 2019-09-06 (AdvMain 3.10.9). .
   
• Save AstroPlan Report/Log information to a dated file. At the moment informaton gets overwritten each time AstroPlan is opened
  Done 2019-09-09. AstroPlan 1.9.8. File is now named 'AstroPlan.yyyy-mm-dd.htm' 
       ( Write to Log file is currently disabled so this change is only applied to the Report File)
   
• Change the Level at which certain Session Events are saved to give some better structure to resulting Event Table output. For example
  Parking Dome, Connecting/Parking Scope & Open/Closing shutter should be level 2
  Done 2019-09-07 (AdvMain 3.11). Historic event data has been updated to be consistent with the new structure.
   
  
• During Observatory Shutdown, a session event should be produced to confirm that Shutter is Already Closed. At the moment an event is only produced if the Shutter is Closed due Observatory Shutdown itself. The new event description show the time at which shutter was previously closed and the time taken (in sec).  This is to make the morning check faster and more efficient.
  Done 2019-09-07 (AdvMain 3.11)
   
• AstroPlan should continue making / saving Observing Plan / Observing Result plots at 30 min intervals until dawn, even after Session has finished.   An attempt to make this enhancement was done 2019-09-07. AstroPlan 1.9.7.  This was an attempted solution  but it is unclear how well it will work and whether it will have any sideeffects or not.  In the end it was rolled back on 019-09-08 AstroPlan 1.9.8 in favour a JavaScript solution to the draw the 'up to date' current time on the Live Charts on the web page
  Resolved 2019-09-08 (AdvPlan 1.9.8 & Website)
   
• If Session is in Equilibration when final target is passed a new plan should be built and used if Continue with New Plan is checked. This follows on from the Major Issue that 2 hours of potential observing time were lost when Session Shutdown unexpectedly occured at 01:50.
  >> Add improvement  (Has this be done ? - Note added Nov 2020)
   
• If Skip Equilibration option is checked, consider whether session should be moved to suspended and queue started, rather than wait on weather in Equilibration.  Resolved.  After waiting on weather for 5 mins in Equilibrating State. the queue is started and immediately moved to suspended state.
  Resolved.  (AstroMain x.x.x)
  

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