SG Pro - gone to subscription model

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Originally Posted by The_bluester

You don't have to manually enter the RA/DEC any more. If you use the web dashboard (As the easiest/quickest way) you can generate target RA/DEC and save them in Roboclip, you can then fish the targets out of Roboclip both to create the sequence and import them into decision/timing lines in dragscripts. I just had a look, if you plan to just center on a specific target with a known name/catalog number you can generate those directly in Roboclip as well. I normally use the web dashboard so I can see what my framing should look like.

I think I'm following however arn't you still inputting RA and DEC into both the sequence and into the decision/timing line in the dragscript for each target?

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Yes, you put it in the sequence (Which is for the plate solving and centering) and the timing is a separate thing. You could for a single target in a night just do it with a simple sequence by itself and no dragscript, but error management and retries is an advantage of using a dragscript. In case of failed guiding for cloud etc mine will retry the sequence at ten minute intervals up to 9 times before giving up and parking the mount.

Using a dragscript you should with a bit of thought be able to get it to run one sequence until a different target gets into a good position then switch to the new one which is the upside to putting target info in more than once place.

I did assume to start with you meant having to manually enter RA/DEC, which you do not need to do any more, you can copy it in to Roboclip in a number of ways and copy it from Roboclip to the various dragscript timing events, or straight in to a sequence.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I've got this figured out now. Start and stop criteria are in the sequence and the dragscript has a loop and wait until the next target gets to the right position. Testing now in progress

[The_bluester (Paul)]

You can work things a lot of different ways in Voyager. You can call a sequence using a dragscript, but in the script you can over ride the start/stop criteria set in the sequence itself. There in some ways are more flexible timing options in the scripts than the sequences.

I think you could put 100 Voyager users in a room and find 99 different ways to use it.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Just make a nice simple Cheat Sheet for gentle folk like myself ;-)

DT

[The_bluester (Paul)]

It is really not too hard to ease your way into. Setup wise you work your way through the tabs from left to right, the only semi tricky one is focus where you should read the wiki and follow the steps laid out. In use it can be as simple as an SGP sequence or as complicated as a dragscript that is so long you need to scroll through it like a Microsoft EULA to get to the end.

Like everything else there will be things that will trip you up, but most of them you will only do wrong once. Dragscripts are the real power behind the flexibility, and because of that also have the most potential pitfalls!
To really get the best out of dragsripts you need to think logically, build the script in blocks and think your way through each possible path through the script to make sure it will do what you expect, not just what you tell it to (Every time I have had a problem with a script it has been because I did not think through all the possible outcomes, so while it did not do what I wanted, it did do what I told it to!)

[DavidTrap (David)]

Thanks Paul - just being a little facetious.

I had great success with it on my first outing - pretty much imaged all night without user intervention - one target, three filters, regular focusing and meridian flip.

I don't have a permanent observatory, so I'm not sure I'll need to venture into drag scripts for my use case.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I don't have an obs either (Yet) but I use dragscripts mainly to build in the ability to do two targets in a night, shooting them only when they are in the best positions rather than trying to get every scrap of data on them that I can each night, then moving on when the next one is in a good spot. That and to build in the recovery possibilities if a band of cloud passes through then it clears again.

In that way it is similar to what you can do with SGP and it's recovery option but you have more control over what it does. You could direct it to stop tracking, park the mount, probably even to shoot some flats while it waited if you had a flat panel etc, or if you had limited battery power you could get it to warm the camera up in the wait times to cut power consumption.

People with obs and environmental monitors can set it up to shut up shop if conditions demand it then continue on again if things clear up, or simply sit there and do nothing all night if it is too cloudy or windy or raining.

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Hi All Three years ago I all most brough SG Pro ,after trying to set it up and to get it to work was some time a hit and miss . I then came across N.I.N.A it was doing the same job as SG Pro and a lot easier to use ,also if you had any issues with it ,they will get back to within 2 hours and help you through your problem, the longiers I have waited was 10 hours and top it off it is FREE
Ian

[lazjen (Chris)]

I was thinking about this whole subscription model thing and I realised that for me at least, I don't mind the idea overall. For example, Voyager's model is buy, get a year's update/support, then buy yearly upgrades/support after that. I think the reason I don't mind it is that's the way it's been since I've known about it at least. i.e. there never was any other setup.

The problem is mostly when things change, especially from a pay for product outright to subscription (less so when going from free to subscription). Our minds seem to treat the change differently and it seems less fair. I think that companies that are wanting to do such changes need to over compensate existing users to re-balance this or ameliorate the negativity felt. It's a marketing exercise, but important for the user community. Unfortunately a lot of the time, this is overlooked or with something minor or trivial which in fact can makes things worse.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Is the new SGP subscription model to auto deduct maintenance fee yearly with onus on user to opt out or does the user opt in if they want the maintenance each year? I think Voyager has the latter model.