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A Fully Automated Imaging Observatory - WIP


steppenwolf

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Using AAG CloudWatcher with CCD Commander version 1.7.4 Issue

There is an issue with using AAG CloudWatcher with the current version of CCD Commander but there is a work-around as follows:-

1. Download this AAG CloudWatcher executable:
... replacing your current one.
2. Launch the CloudWatcher software, go to the Setup / Network tab and select a new folder for the CCDAutoPilot4 data file (the installation folder is protected in recent windows versions).
3. Run CCDCommander and select "AAG CW Remote" under  'Weather Monitor) and point it to the AAG_CCDAP4.dat file (in the new folder you have just selected in the step 2 above).
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Steve I dont bother with the dome locks had some strong wind and its not been an issue. Unless your using them for security purposes?

Intrusion protection only.

Sorry Steve im lost here, Im used to things like example.exe -start

Earl, if you copy my text below and paste it into Notepad, you can then save the text as a vbs file in your root directory - call the file something like Start_AAG.vbs  - (note the vbs file extension, NOT .txt). You now have a VBScript file that you can run by double-clicking on it, setting a shortcut on your desktop to it, placing a batch file to run it in your startup folder, etc. etc.

Dim oCW

set oCW = CreateObject("AAG_CloudWatcher.CloudWatcher")

oCW.Device_Start()

oCW.RecordStart False

Set oCW=nothing

Hope that helps!

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AH HA !!!

progress im just running of some flats sould be sleeping but the house is busy as the family are back from been a way for a few days....

as soon as thats done ill do a reboot :) to test it

Edited by Earl
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  • 3 weeks later...

OK, back from a family holiday in La Palma (including a visit to the Observatories - see below) and I have now installed my telescope and written a set of CCD Commander 'Actions' to start a session in either Luminance or Ha followed by appropriate filter changes and Flats collection with a re-focus every 30 minutes (approx. allowing for downloading etc.) and a final closedown procedure with full weather-watch in between.

I am polar aligned (although not perfectly yet) and I spent last night calibrating my weather sensor to identify what constitutes 'too light' and what I interpret as 'cloudy'.

A problem with my Flats being too bright has (hopefully) been resolved by making a set of encapsulated white paper blanks that I can insert depending on whether I am capturing narrowband or wideband data so in theory, I am good to go! All I need now is a clear night ..........

SGL Gets Everywhere!

post-1029-0-49335300-1434311338.png

The Gran Telescopio Canarias (looking down on the cloud layer)

post-1029-0-45809900-1434311284.png

The William Herschel Telescope

post-1029-0-86940900-1434311397.png

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  • 4 weeks later...

ADDITIONAL NOTE 6 - Software De-Bugging:-

I have now completed my personal ‘holiday season’ with Scotland, La Palma and Spa Francorchamps ticked off the list so I can now get stuck back into the observatory project before Janie drags me off again!

The first issue to resolve is an error-free start-up of all the software as from time to time I noted an error message caused by an apparent inability of the software to find the focuser even though I knew it was connected and working! I spent some considerable time testing all sorts of permutations but eventually it came down to an issue with the automatic un-parking of the mount (?!!). My first solution was to write a short VBS script to build in a pause that required the click of a button to confirm that the mount was un-parked and tracking. However, although this worked fine, it seemed like a real kludge (and let’s be fair, it was a kludge!) so I found a much better solution and that was to enable the mount automatically from within FocusMax.

I found it wasn’t possible to auto-close some programs without leaving some issues with apparently enabled connections to other programs so I currently manually close FocusMax, MaxIm DL and Cartes du Ciel. I have no doubt that there is a solution to this but as I am on site and already turn off the power supplies manually, I am happy to close these programs too for now.

If anyone has any suggestions for an automatic solution, I’d be pleased to hear from you! FocusMax will load automatically when CCD Commander is run (and subsequently close when CCD Commander is closed) but this does not resolve the mount un-parking issue mentioned earlier.

To automate the start-up and close-down sequences has required minor modifications to be made to the batch files so I have reproduced the latest versions here:

The main batch file

:Pause to display warning message
echo off
CLS
:*** WARNING - UNDO DOME LOCKS ***
undo_locks.vbs
start "" "C:\Program Files\FocusMax\FocusMax.exe
: Run Cartes Du Ciel
start "" "C:\Program Files\Ciel\skychart.exe
: Start AAG_CloudWatcher executable
cd\AAG Cloudwatcher
autostart_CloudWatcher.vbs
: Start CCD Commander and wait for it to close
start /wait "" "C:\ccd commander\CCDCommander.exe
: Run AAG_CloudWatcher executable close-down after CCD Commander closes
close_AAG_CloudWatcher.bat
:Exit this batch file
exit

close_AAG_CloudWatcher.bat

autoclose_CloudWatcher.vbs
tskill AAG_CloudWatcher

There has also been an intermittent issue with the shutter control system in that it doesn’t always respond to the limit switch on opening and again, intermittently fails to respond to a shutter close command. For a couple of weeks, I put this down to a software issue coinciding with the focuser load error mentioned above. This was a red herring that wasted some valuable testing time to resolve and I wish I had been aware that the LesveDome GUI could be run at the same time as POTH as this demonstrated conclusively that the dome control software was correctly responding to ‘close slit’ commands! This put the fault squarely onto the shutter control box and a replacement has been organised by Pulsar Observatories who responded in their typically positive manner to the issue once it had been diagnosed.

I have now carried out a drift alignment and tested automatic meridian flips so as soon as the new shutter controller arrives, I will be able to move onto the next phase of testing. This phase will involve automatic plate solving at start-up and each side of a meridian flip, auto-focusing every ‘n’ minutes, auto-focusing between filter changes and automating the acquisition of a suitable guide star.

The final stage will be full calibration of the AAG CloudWatcher software to ensure that it closes the aperture when poor skies or rain are detected, once I have satisfied myself that the aperture controller will work flawlessly as this is key to a successful automation project.

Something else I have completed is the 'beautification' of the observatory to help its insertion into our (or should I say Janie's!) garden. We decided to try the 'high-tech' approach to this with non-terracotta pots and a more technical, uncluttered feel with the removal of the brick and pebble base to give a 'clean' look. 'Baaabara' the sheep was a surprise present for Janie to compensate for the fact that I went motor-racing at Spa with my two sons over a week that included our 40th wedding anniversary - I think I got off lightly :grin: :grin:. The unit on the wooden post to the left of the observatory is the AAG CloudWatcher sensing unit. I know it is soooo obvious now that I have installed it but I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have that other wooden post to the right to hold the observatory door open on a stainless steel cabin hook!! Why didn't I do this with the original dome - Doh!!

post-1029-0-23212800-1436722678.png



 

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I haven't fully completed my calibration of the AAG unit but the following image shows my preliminary figures which seem to be in the right ballpark as I appear to be getting consistent results (Location Sussex)

post-1029-0-88863400-1437257518.png

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Looking good Steve

my rotation gubbins is on its way back to Pulsar as its sticking, they ae goign to look at the electronics to see what issues are goign on then Dave is coming out to reinstall and see if there are any further issues.

I feel that the dome (due to is sitting on fibreglass walls with no flat surface on top of this) has moved over time and the wall is not flat any more so the dome is sitting on it at an angle, but this is just a hunch, Ill have to wait and see, and then get it all working again for the winter.

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oh and by the way the sky temp is not fixed, it has fluctuation and needs an eye on it as the seasons change.

I had assumed there was a winter/summer set of calibrations, must remember to take a screen shot of this summers settings.

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oh and by the way the sky temp is not fixed, it has fluctuation and needs an eye on it as the seasons change.

Yes, I agree, this will require tweaking and as I discovered last night, I may have darkness and wet sorted but I have singularly failed with cloud :clouds1:

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  • 3 weeks later...

ADDITIONAL NOTE 7 - Nearly ready - DOH! :-

The replacement shutter controller was recently installed by Dave and Trevor from Pulsar and since then, I haven't had a single failure of the limit switch system which is very good news. The operation of the shutter is now very much more reliable although I have still had the occasional instance of the system failing to close under software command during extensive testing.

A full automation run proved interesting and disappointing at the same time but nothing to do with the Pulsar dome automation itself and everything to do with me not having everything set up correctly.

The camera was automatically connected and started its controlled temperature reduction in 5 degree segments down to -20 degrees C, the aperture opened, the mount slewed and the dome synced correctly with the mount but PinPoint failed to carry out a successful plate solve. I hadn't homed the mount so it was way outside PinPoint's search parameters - Doh!

Correctly synced, all seemed well so the system tried to focus on the sync star but failed. Too bright by far - and my fault as the ADU values and exposures were well outside the parameters I had set in CCD Commander (CCD C). Locating a much dimmer star resulted in perfect focus  - Doh!

CCD C continued to the next stage and slewed to my chosen object and carried out another plate solve this time successfully. Hooray! Sooo, it went in search of a suitable guide star but once it had found one and started autoguiding, I watched in horror as the errors got worse and worse until it lost the guide star completely! Perhaps I should have remembered to tell the control software which side of the meridian I had last carried out a guide star calibration? ..... Doh!

The imaging run with autoguiding went smoothly until the pre-programmed autofocus routine came round after about an hour. No suitable star in the field of view - this is why I should be either specifying a suitable mag 4.0 star to slew to and focus on or not being such a tight wad and just buying the full version of PinPoint and not the LE version that came free with MaxIm DL so that a nearby star of suitable magnitude can be located automatically  - Doh!

Having completed the capture of the data, CCD C closed the automatic flat-flap, turned on the EL panel and started to capture flat frames - I say 'started' because it never actually captured a single flat frame because I had set the slowest exposure to 1 second (to be extra sure of avoiding any masking with the camera's mechanical shutter) and the system calculated that I actually required an exposure time of 900ms to suit the ADU value of 22,000 that I had set  - Doh!

The cooling system on the camera automatically warmed up slowly to ambient temperature, the mount parked to the north, the dome parked to the south and the dome shutter stayed open for no good reason so I recycled the closing system and it closed beautifully and smoothly  - Doh!

On a secondary note, although the replacement Pulsar shutter system works extremely well most of the time, there are a couple of things that I would like to have changed for my own rather exacting requirements so I went about designing my own control system which I have since installed alongside the supplied system. This gives me the following advantages over a standard installation:-

1. Because the power to the motor is applied for a fraction longer than the actual travel time, instead of the shutter apparently opening in 1 second (as is the case with the standard command structure), the LesveDome system now issues a realistic (approx 40 seconds) notification to CCD Commander that the dome is either opening or closing. This means that there is no risk of the automation software starting to capture an image with the shutter partly open which could happen if an imaging run started immediately after a dome opening.
2. Should I choose to, I can use the ‘stop’ function in LesveDome to halt either open or close commands at any time during the shutter’s travel.
3. I get a ‘soft’ stop at the limit switch rather than an instant stop - no big deal, I just rather like to soft close!
There are two disadvantages to my modified system:-
1. Because of the soft stop, there is a very small amount of ‘coast’ at the end of both an opening and closing cycle that has to be allowed for to avoid the shutter fouling on the dome aperture edges
2. To manually open or close the shutter, I now have to hold the switch in the up or down position for the duration of the travel rather than the system automatically carrying out an automated operation as standard. I could simply incorporate a small timing circuit to make this automatic but, to be honest, it really doesn’t bother me as automation rather than manual selection is what I am aiming for.
I need some clear skies please and a few less Dohs..............
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I use the  LesveDome unit to open/close my obs roof, because of the weight there is some coast at the end of the travel, I use limit switches to cut the power to the motor and another set of switches about 5mm further in to report to  LesveDome analogue input that the roof is actually open/closed instated of waiting for the time out.

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and another set of switches about 5mm further in to report to  LesveDome analogue input that the roof is actually open/closed instated of waiting for the time out.

That's interesting, Martin - I am using a one-way RF link from the main controller (the one that houses the Velleman board) to the aperture controller so there is no physical feedback from the aperture controller, just the time-out which is generated by the software. Do you use a two-way RF link or a set of contact plates?

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I use a couple of hard wired lever microswitches for the power circuit and the inbuilt magnetic/reed switches that came with the garage door opener.

Dont forget that mine is a ROR roof, using this circuit for open/close http://www.dppobservatory.net/ROR/ED-ROR-basic-V01.pdf

Limit switch operation is documented in the help files......Paragraph B of the Hardware - Shutter Control section.

Edited by martin_h
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ADDITIONAL NOTE 8 - Dome operating perfectly - rest of software challenging :-

With the Pulsar Observatory itself working absolutely perfectly - I highly recommend this manufacturer if you are in the market for a manual or motorised observatory - I have turned my attention to the rest of the installation and this is proving challenging.

I am learning pretty quickly that FocusMax is very choosy about the magnitude of stars that it will focus on although when I choose the right star, it works flawlessly - some careful pre-planning will be required here.

I have finally produced a new sky model for the new installation so am hopeful that my failed first star alignment plate solves will be a thing of the past as the mount is now slewing incredibly accurately all over the sky so that the plate solve will be working on a portion of sky within its search parameters!

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Like you, my first run was a mixed bag of results and ended up abandoning the auto and taking control manually....didn't want to waste a clear night!  But after some tinkering managed a fully automated - find target, 4 filter, meridian flip run lasting some 5 hours. I have yet to integrate weather reporting but that can wait a white.

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There's a lot to get right, Martin and using a wide range of disparate software only adds to the integration issues! In isolation, each function is working very well indeed although the focusing will require some planning - I'm thinking of making up some 'pairs' comprising a deep sky object and a local suitable mag star.

Plate solving works well but as PinPoint LE is not a blind solver, the mount does need to be pointing and synced in the right area and within the solver's pre-set parameters. The sky model should have resolved that.

Meridian flips work smack on - I have mine set to go 15 minutes after culmination and the dome waits for the mount to finish before it slaves.

The dome itself is working perfectly and I am always amused by how accurately the AZ moves and positions itself so that the telescope points right through the very centre of the aperture.

Weather monitoring is 2/3 there with light intensity and rain detection working predictably and cloud detection getting there.

Camera cool down and warm up and, of course, filter changes have always been issue-free although I haven't yet decided whether to use focus offsets for the filters.

A change to the flats parameters to allow slower exposure times with the automatic flat-flap seems to have worked so that box can also be ticked.

I've yet to re-try the auto acquisition of a guide star but I have learnt my lesson over that one.

All in all, I have made some good progress but you can see why I chose the Summer months to set this all up can't you!

Ironically, even if I don't capture a single image this season, I'll still have had a lot of fun!!

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

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  • 2 weeks later...

ADDITIONAL NOTE 9 - PinPoint Version 6

I have taken the plunge and bought the full version of PinPoint instead of relying on the LE version that ships free with MaxIm DL. This full version of the software will work with FocusMax's 'AcquireStar' feature that will automatically choose a suitable focus star of the correct magnitude near to the current pointing of the telescope. This will save the pairing exercise that I was contemplating earlier but I have also discovered an additional 'bonus'. Accompanying the full version is a built in feature that will do a 'blind solve' - a blind solve is a plate solve for which  the current RA/Dec is unknown so it could be anywhere in the sky. This feature is slower than using the PinPoint astrometry engine and relies on an Internet connection to astrometry.net but I have been a beta tester for this Internet engine for some years and it works very well indeed. This plate solve is pretty accurate but not perhaps as accurate as PinPoint itself BUT if the mount happens to have a pointing error outside PinPoint's search parameters (perhaps after a meridian flip, for example) the blind solve will furnish PinPoint with an accurate enough pointing location to allow a full accurate solve in a single pass - magic!

Unfortunately, as far as I can see, CCD Commander will not action this feature automatically but I have been in touch with the developer to see if this can be added to the feature 'wish-list'. As a minimum, it will be useful for the single star alignment that I carry out at the beginning of each session - ESPECIALLY when my beautiful grand daughter Lexi has head butted the counterbalance bar when playing 'hide and seek' and upset my carefully prepared park position........

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