Issue
 "Dome closure hasn't finished after 90s (ShutterState = Closing)" alert issued even though Dome was phyically 'Closed'

Description
Following a HardSuspend on 21:05 whilst taking a 180s frame for Target 8/40 (NGC 4227) the session was suspended and the Pulsar Dome commanded to close via DeviceHub.Dome. A Dome Alert  "Dome closure hasn't finished after 90s (ShutterState = Closing)" was noticed at 21:15.  Examining status of the observatory computer remotely it could be seen that the dome was reporting as 'Closing' / still 'Slewing'  in both AstroMain and in DeviceHub.

The observatory was visited where it was found that the shutter was fully closed, with the lower limit switch fully depressed, but the dome clients (AstroMain, AstroGuard and DeviceHub) were still showing the Dome as Closing/Slewing. 

Attempted Resolution
All telescope and dome client connections were stopped and DeviceHub program was closed.  Device Hub was then restarted  and a new dome connection made from AstroMain.  The dome continued to report that it was closing/slewing. 

The Windows Task Manager never shows a process associated with the Pulsar Dome Driver and it is unclear if there is a stalled driver still running or not, or the problem lies with the Dome Control Unit (Rotation Drive Unit).  

Dome Connection/DeviceHub were again stopped and the power to the Dome Rotation Drive Unit turned off/turned on before again restarting DeviceHub/Client Connections. This time the dome reported that it was closed and stationary (ie not slewing).

Analysis
The fact that stopping all Dome clients and DeviceHub program didn't resolve the issue, but rebooting the Dome Control Unit did resolve the issue, would seem to indicate that the Dome Control Unit had some form of glitch or was otherwise is some state where the value of shutter state was 'stuck' on closing. 

The problem is not considered to reside in the Shutter Unit Software or its Hardware, since after rebooting the Dome Control Unit the dome correctly reports that it closed without making any changes to the Shutter Unit.  The issue is not considered critical since the shutter was physically closed such that the dome was not in any danger from the elements, but it is a major issue as session couldn't proceed without making an intervention poetntailly loosing several hours of observing time later in the night. 

A similar problem has been see before but not for some time (give last session no and date). 

Examining Pulsar ASCOM log , it can be seen that CloseShutter is received at 21:05:44.8 and immediately begins to close
Dome would be expected to have finished after 46-50s: (ie at around 21:06:31 to 21:06:35). We can see aan active draw on shuttery battery happening between 21:06:09 to 21:06:14 but thereafter volatile messages are seemingly 'frozen' suggesting communications or some processing has stalled.  It

20:59:40.579 ShutterStatus    1  (ie closed)
20:59:43.778 OpenShutter Completed
20:59:43.778 ShutterStatus    2  (ie opening)
 to
21:00:24.829 ShutterStatus    2
21:00:25.840 ShutterStatus    0   (ie open)

21:05:40.833 ShutterStatus    0   (ie open)
21:05:44.801 CloseShutter     Completed
21:05:45.826 ShutterStatus    3   (ie closing)
21:06:45.874 ShutterStatus    3   (ie still closing, 60s later)

21:06:08.061 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14962 -3 23902 8998 2368 0
21:06:09.037 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14599 -476 23902 9745 2357 0
21:06:10.013 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14599 -476 23902 9745 2357 0
21:06:10.989 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14607 -401 23902 9745 2357 0
21:06:11.980 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14618 -435 23902 9745 2356 0
21:06:12.988 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14618 -435 23902 9745 2356 0
21:06:14.011 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14641 -374 23902 9745 2356 0
21:06:15.020 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14641 -374 23902 9745 2356 0
21:06:16.044 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14641 -374 23902 9745 2356 0
21:06:17.212 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14641 -374 23902 9745 2356 0
  values then remain 'frozen' till
21:20:17.432 Volatile 69.9 0 0.000000 69.9 0 3 960 14641 -374 23902 9745 2356 0


Conclusion
The issue is deemed closed on this occasion as it was successully resolved in-session via user intervention. 

Action

Consider employing a Smart Power Plug
In assist more rapid resolution of a similar issue a smart Power Plug could be used in future so that dome unit could be reset via power cycle commanded from indoors (this would be similar to use a Phillips Hue Smart Power Plug for remotely rebooting the SBIG Camera). There is however a danger in replying on a remote option when the problem might be a real one that can only be understood by making an actual visit out to the observatory.
(User intervention is still required though as Combee II solution for automated operation of Phillips Hue smart plugs currently used in the observatory but a prototype software program hasn't been made to work as yet)

ImageBuilder
ImageBuilder is a new tool built into AstroMain 3.49 for preparing final presentation pictures of CCD images for the astro-richweb website (session image pages and object type pages.

Purpose and Planned Benefits of the New Tool
The tool has been developed primarily to speed up the preparation of cropped, resized pictures including selected annotations (such as a scale bar, a target Cross-Hairs or circles,  and one of two labels,  as this is the where the main bottleneck currently resides. At the present time there are 53 sessions from the last 12 months that still need to be analysed and presentation pictures created & compiled into theire respective session web page.  With the ability to observing at any clear period of sky with automated observatory the rate at which final pictures sets are being created is slower  than the rate at which new session are being undertaken.

The other benefits of the tool will that it will allow some of the tedium of preparing pictures to be removed (drawing a rectangle scale bar of required size with mouse (23, 38, 30, 32, 43 px long, depending on scale, by 5 px high) , selecting a region of standard size centered on target with mouse, drawing cross-hairs with mouse of required size about target object are just some of the examples of tedious / repetitive tasks that the tool will hopefully replace.  An example of one such repetitive task is the creation of a 382 x 256 cropped image, which involves selecting the target object centre and dragging out a selection regio of 191x126 size to find required top left corner, and from 1 pixel above this corner, then dragging a reqgio of 382 x 256 and then cropping the image. )
The tool will allow standard presentation to be more easily created when creating pictures that monitor a transient object (like a supernova, an nova or an AGN over a period of time). Cross hairs can have the same orientation each time, precisely located about the target with labels in exactly the same place each session.   Labelling is also a tedius task that typically involves changing font size between that required for scale bar and that required for object name label. Changing scale bar text from '1 arc min' to '30 arc sec' is also a tedious task.

The task of writing or pasting file names into save file dialogs or editing the file name for different image derivatives (eg. .150pc.crop.an), or changing image tyoe from .gif to .jpg is also tedius and time consuming.  Also time consuming is copying images into the WebSite Authoring type and editing images to point to correct new image file name.

The New Tool - Context and Operation
After aligning and stacking sub frames to compile a final FITS image using AstroMain's existing ImageSet workflow , the final image is then plate solved and displayed in eithe CCDSoft ofr FV with the required histogram range, scale type (linear, square root, log) and false color if required.  The first part of the new tool then allows the import of an image automatically captured from FV Fits Viewer program (including image mirroring), import of image that was copied in CCDSoft (including a 180 deg rotation) or image pasted from PaintShopPro, or a full size image previously saved to disk.  Prior plate solution of the stacked FITS image.  The image is captured as a bitmap and then passed to the second part of the tool (ImageBuilder itself) as a full size image or a reduced/resized image or a cropped image (that may have been resized beforehand).   Any previous settings for the target/image type will be passed to the ImageBuilder, which displays the image along with any selected annotation.  The annotation can be changed / as required. When the picture has the right features it is saved (monochrome image typically saved as gif, falsecolor image typically saved a .jpg). The associated settings are also saved which can be reused next time the target is imaged.   Finally the picture can be saved as a final JPG version and automatically copied to the local Website/Authoring. The image file name is copied to the clibboard from where it can be used to set/pick up the picture in the webpage authoring tool (WebExpression).

Fig 1. Existing Tab for aligning/stacking/image linking frames.

 

Fig 2. New Tab for capturing bitmap for use by the ImageBuilder

 

Fig 3. FITS image shown in FV Fits View (Square Root Scale)
(Orientation is 'wrong' in this FV image, but is automatically corrected upon import into ImageBuilder using 'Capture FV')

 

Fig 4a. New ImageBuilder form with Full Frame Image (unannotated).  

 

Fig 4b. New ImageBuilder form with resized (70% size) image + annotation

 

Fig 4c. New Image Builder form with cropped image (125% size) + annotation

 

Fig 4d. New ImageBuilder form with resized (70% size) false color image (unannotated)

The finished images are presented on the S969 Session Images web page (images-2022-02-10.htm#NGC_3628)
(Note: As it turned out the intended target of the image (transient AT 2022brm) was not visible, but nevertheless that's still a result)

Limitations

The new tool is expected to serve some 90-95% of presentation tasks,  but it will require the additional intervention of a downstream image presentation tool (I use PaintShopPro for this) for adding more pieces of text (such as labelling galaxies adjacent to the primary galaxy target) or cropping images to a different aspect ration to that of the original eg, creating a 382 x 382 px square image, or removing specific blemishes in the picture (cosmic ray strikes).
 

Features added - post 3.49.0

Trim.  Able to trim certain sides of the original image prior to creation a smaller sized image. This is to knock out regions which might have limited frame coverage after aligning  (3.49.3,  2022-02-10)

Offset centering.  It is some time useful to offset the target to one side of the presentation image (eg to see more of a comet's tail) or to centre on a point midway between two similar but closely spaced galaxies  (3.49.3,  2022-02-10)
  
RIght hand Button options. Started adding right-hand button menu options  for selecting/moving items without reference to current buttons for Moving labels   (3.49.4, 2022-02-12)

Features still to be added - post 3.49.4

To be reviewed after using the new tool for a while. Ideas :
 - Extend right-hand button menu options for selecting trimmed region (main images only)