See this thread in the comm center

Declaring it ready for beta.

 

  
SVN Comment
 
 

  
Author
  
rbdenny
 
 

  
Repository
  
svn+ssh://rbdenny@a2_svn_dc3/home/rbdenny/svn/astro/acp
 
 

  
SVN Revision
  
426
 
 

  
Affected files
  
/trunk/ACP Help/Programmer's Reference/ACP2 Programmer's Reference.mdb (Modified)
/trunk/ACP Help/autofocus.htm (Modified)
/trunk/ACP Help/filters.htm (Modified)
/trunk/ACP Help/getstart.htm (Modified)
/trunk/ACP Help/planfmt.html (Modified)
/trunk/ACP Help/relnotes.htm (Modified)
/trunk/AcquireSupport.wsc (Modified)
/trunk/Script Components Master/AcquireSupport.wsc (Modified)
/trunk/Scripts/AcquireImages.js (Modified)

 
 

  
Check-in comment
  
Final touches and docs. Looking good.
GEM:80

 

 

  
SVN Comment
 
 

  
Author
  
rbdenny
 
 

  
Repository
  
svn+ssh://rbdenny@a2_svn_dc3/home/rbdenny/svn/astro/acp
 
 

  
SVN Revision
  
425
 
 

  
Affected files
  
/trunk/AcquireSupport.wsc (Modified)
/trunk/Script Components Master/AcquireSupport.wsc (Modified)
/trunk/Scripts/FocusOffsets.vbs (Modified)

 
 

  
Check-in comment
  
Dang! Forgot to turn off AcquireSupport debugging and restore 5 to the loop count in FocusOffsets.vbs
GEM:80

 

 

  
SVN Comment
 
 

  
Author
  
rbdenny
 
 

  
Repository
  
svn+ssh://rbdenny@a2_svn_dc3/home/rbdenny/svn/astro/acp
 
 

  
SVN Revision
  
424
 
 

  
Affected files
  
/trunk/AcquireSupport.wsc (Modified)
/trunk/Script Components Master/AcquireSupport.wsc (Modified)
/trunk/Scripts/AcquireImages.js (Modified)
/trunk/Scripts/FindBrightStar.vbs (Modified)
/trunk/Scripts/FindFocalLength.vbs (Modified)
/trunk/Scripts/FocusOffsets.vbs (Modified)

 
 

  
Check-in comment
  
OOPS. more things I forgot to transfer from working installation: In progress - focus star mag range for each filter. Further testing needed. API Change Prefs.AutoFocus.ForcePerFilter

GEM:80

 

 

  
SVN Comment
 
 

  
Author
  
rbdenny
 
 

  
Repository
  
svn+ssh://rbdenny@a2_svn_dc3/home/rbdenny/svn/astro/acp
 
 

  
SVN Revision
  
423
 
 

  
Affected files
  
/trunk/ACP Help/relnotes.htm (Modified)
/trunk/ACP Interop Assembly (Scheduler)/Interop.ACP.dll (Modified)
/trunk/AutoFocus.cls (Modified)
/trunk/Main.bas (Modified)
/trunk/acp-ref.exe (Modified)
/trunk/frmPrefs.frm (Modified)

 
 

  
Check-in comment
  
In progress - focus star mag range for each filter. Further testing needed. API Change Prefs.AutoFocus.ForcePerFilter
GEM:80

 

Need  way to force per-filter autofocus even when FilterInfo is present... in case they want to use the variable star mags but not focus offsets. Will add a new property ACP.Util.Prefs.AutoFocus.ForcePerFilterFocus.

Wow!! There are major errors in the "visual" mags calculated from the catalogs for bright stars. The CatMax/Min use visual, so I was getting too faint stars "Mag" even when the CatMax/Min were properly ranged. This is a PinPoint problem. I ended up modifying AcquireSupport.FindBrightStar() to filter on Star.Magnitude (which drives off the ColorBand, defaulting to Red), then just set the PinPoint CatMax/Min range from 11 to 0 respectively.



At this point it also uses optional min/max mags in FilterInfo. Progress!

Adam Block has it the other way around... the focus stars can be too bright on the 32 inch.. Another point for adding a mag range to the FilterInfo file instead of the -NB hack.

I suggested: What would you think of asking people to name their narrowband filters in MaxIm xxx-NB or something? Like HAlpha-NB. Then I would just shift gears to stars with mag 3-6 and the larger search range needed. I could strip off the "-NB" for cosmetic purposes within ACP and keep a separate narrowband flag list. I'd strip them for the web forms too.

Brewington suggests a mag range be assigned to each filter as needed.

Rather than what I previously outlined, maybe make the AF algorithm smarter, and allow FindBrightStar to be called with mag range. There may be some info that can be read back from FMax to tell whether the star is too weak. Or maybe FMax can be told to use longer exposure, or automatically adapt. There are a lot of things that might work to automate this. Maybe the mag range could simply be expanded and let FMax adjust?



I'm going to take this old ticket and work on it. It could result in an improvement to the AF process in general.

Not this time. To do this right:


    
FilterInfo.txt will need to change (added param)
    
Documentation of FilterInfo changes
    
AcquireSupport.FindBrightStar changes
    
AcquireSupport.Autofocus changes (exposure interval guess)
    
The FocusOffsets.vbs script changes, and ideally would ask the user for each filter in his list whether he considers it to be "narrowband". Otherwise the user will have to edit FilterInfo just for this feature, and that's error-prone and user unfriendly.
    
An all-sky test for mag 5 stars within the 5 degree search are will need to be done. I did this for mag 6 and that's how I got the 5 degree number. 

Add optional "NB" flag to FilterIInfo, read into AcquireSupport, use in AutoFocus.



WARNING: Will need to greatly expand search area to get stars with mag < 6