ACP not taking command when the moon is up

[shahgazer]

Hi Guys,

I'm setting up ACP in a local observatory. Everything else (connection to Paramount via TheSky 6, and Maxim DL) are nicely configured with ACP.

However, tonight when I was trying to do a test slew, ACP refused to go and keeps giving me this warning message

"it is not going to get dark enough to observe for at least a day".

I guess it's because the Moon is up. :shrug:

How and where in the setting do I need to overwrite warning and let ACP stars the imaging session regardless when the moon is up or not?

I didn't find this warning message when I used Simulator for both the Telescope and Imager.

Pretty desperate to get it up and running before Thursday! :help:

Thanks

[RickS]

I've never seen this with ACP. Did you try posting on the ACP forum? Bob Denny (the author) and the other folks there are very responsive.

[jase]

Shah,

ACP doesn't know if the moon is up or not. Only when you run ACP with ACP Scheduler does the system gain such intelligence and can begin to make automatic decisions on what plans to run based on object location in the sky, moon down or location in sky for avoidance, etc.

Under ACP Preferences | Observatory tab, make sure your latitude and longitude are accurate. While in Preferences, check under the Telescope tab that the min elevation is also correct. ACP uses this information along with local time to compute whether the target is 'reachable' in the sky. If its not, that's the error you'll receive.

[shahgazer]

Thanks guys,

I've tried looking into the settings (Lat, Lon, horizon limit), everything is in sync with TheSky.

Can we disable the ACP Scheduler function in ACP? (though I couldn't find exactly where it is).

BTW, I'm testing with the evaluation version of ACP. But I don't think this is the cause.

Attached is the screenshot of the warning message.

I've emailed Bob, and still waiting for his response.

[WingnutR32]

Unless you have also downloaded and installed ACP Scheduler, the software does not come with ACP on its own. So you cannot 'disable' what does not exist.

Bob Denny is very good with his support (both pre and post sales), so definitely ask on the DC3 forums.

I personally have only seen a similar message when my daylight savings time/timezone was not set correctly. Now it is happy to only give this kind of message when I try to run an image session through ACP Planner and the time is still yet to reach astronomical twilight.

Another possible cause is mount limits in terms of your horizon.. Check what setting you have for ACPs Horizon Editor, I have mine to not go to anything below 25 degrees due to hills, but perhaps yours is set to high? (Make it 0 degrees flat horizon and check)

[jase]

I suspect Sam has nailed it, Shah. ACP doesn't reach astronomical twilight until the sun is -12 below. In ACP this is a fixed value. In Scheduler it can be tweaked. Its the reverse for dawn as this triggers ACP to stop what its doing and start getting reading for dawn flats if configured to do so.

Waiting until -12 could be a problem if you want to shoot comets low in the western sky early in the evening.

You can change the value in ACP
Edit the file aacqform.asp in C:\Users\Public\Documents\ACP Web Data\Doc Root\ac and look for this code;
nearDusk = nearestDusk(-12); // Wait if not yet dusk
Change this value to something like -6 if you want ACP to kick into action earlier.

In all seriousness, given your screen capture indicates you want to shoot the DSO M67, I would recommend waiting until the sun hits -12 otherwise you'll experience a sky brightness washout especially with a U filter, though exposure time is only 5sec.

Plan your targets with ACP planner then upload those plans to ACP. If you're lazy (like me) when it comes to planning precise times as to when to shoot targets, ACP Scheduler takes the guess work out and will shoot the target only when certain conditions (constraints in ACP talk) are met. You just tell it what to shoot such as only do RGB when the moon is down and only shoot blue filtered data when the target is +70 in elevation, it will work out the rest. Very powerful and a sure way to ensure that every clear night your system is operating with a high clear sky to data acquired efficiency ratio.

I hope your ACP evaluation goes well. ACP is a rock solid platform for automation.

[shahgazer]

Hi Guys,

I've re-install ACP (without uninstalling the existing files), and the message finally disappear.

Yes, I noticed that there's an option

"Simulated starfield \s and pointing errors (to enable test in daylight)"

which allows me to slew during daytime for testing. and when I unchecked it, ACP refuses to go (since the sun is still above -18 deg from the horizon).

Did a few more test, and it works like a charm.

Thanks for all the tips here. :thumbsup:

[ossgraphics]

Thanks guys for discussing about ACP schedule problem, I was just facing the same issue. Thanks for sharing it. :)