Planalyzer - Program to analyze ACP plan timing

[Mike Dodd]

I just finished a little program that analyzes an ACP observing plan and displays information about the plan timing. After manually editing several plans, I grew frustrated not knowing how long the edited plan would run, and if it would finish before the dawn flat starting time.

Planalyzer reads ACP Planner properties and an ACP plan, then calculates the duration of each step and shows that step's ending time on a little clock. The total plan duration and ending time also are shown.

The plan may be edited (a'la Notepad) and the timing recalculated instantly. If satisfactory, the modified plan may be saved to disk.

I've attached a screen shot showing Planalyzer in operation.

Anyone wanting to play with Planalyzer may download it here:
http://astronomy.mdodd.com/files/Planalyzer.zip
There is no installation program -- just unzip all the files into a directory on your hard drive.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Mike

[Dick Berg]

Hi Mike,

This is really nifty!! I have to look at it more, but I like it.

I did notice two things that you may need some changes to correct:

1. I loaded a plan that started at 7:45 pm and ended at 2:30 am, and the total time presented at the bottom of your screen said "Total time: -17:14:32"

2. I have names for targets like "EQ Tau" (followed by RA and Decs as usual). The names shown in your form have only the first characters, such as, "EQ". This is probably not a big problem, but did you mean to parse the name field just up to the first space, or was it supposed to parse up to the tab?

Good work. I'll put in my Reference Guide, when you tell me it's ready.

[Mike Dodd]

Hi Mike,

This is really nifty!! I have to look at it more, but I like it.

I did notice two things that you may need some changes to correct:

1. I loaded a plan that started at 7:45 pm and ended at 2:30 am, and the total time presented at the bottom of your screen said "Total time: -17:14:32"

That's very strange. Would you care to e-mail me the plan (mike@mdodd.com) so I can take a look at it? I can't duplicate the problem by jiggering a sample plan (see attached screen shot). Is it possible your plan includes a #WAITUNTIL with a date? Is so, as the help file explains, Planalyzer handles only "reusable" plans without dates. Hopefully that's a future enhancement.

2. I have names for targets like "EQ Tau" (followed by RA and Decs as usual). The names shown in your form have only the first characters, such as, "EQ". This is probably not a big problem, but did you mean to parse the name field just up to the first space, or was it supposed to parse up to the tab?

I'll have to refine the target name parsing routine. The simplistic code breaks the target line into tokens interpreted as text separated by whitespace. Thanks for the heads-up.

Mike

[Dick Berg]

Hi, Mike,

What? Read the instructions???!!!

Yes, my plan contains dated #waituntils - it's the way it comes out of the Planner for me. I know I can toggle a switch in Planner to change that, but I just leave it the way it is. Most of my plans for eclipsers are one-off anyway. I've attached it.

My plan takes 6hours 45minutes to run, and 6:45 - 24:00 is -17:15, so I thought maybe you had a MOD (modulus) issue.

[Mike Dodd]

I just finished a little program that analyzes an ACP observing plan and displays information about the plan timing.

Anyone wanting to play with Planalyzer may download it here:
http://astronomy.mdodd.com/files/Planalyzer.zip
There is no installation program -- just unzip all the files into a directory on your hard drive.

I added a few enhancements to Planalyzer. It now recognizes full dates as well as times following a #WAITUNTIL directive. It also incorporates meridian flip time in the time span calculations (including user-entered values for the ACP safety margins).

Even more cool is a "log analysis" window that will load an ACP log and calculate the time span between two log entries. I found this very helpful in revealing the fact that I had specified my image download times in Planner much shorter than they actually are. The log analysis window makes it easy to check Planner properties against actual performance.

Again, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Mike

[Bob Denny]

This is entirely too awesome, Mike!!! Dick Berg was here this evening for dinner and we were talking about you and Planalyzer.

[Mike Dodd]

This is entirely too awesome, Mike!!! Dick Berg was here this evening for dinner and we were talking about you and Planalyzer.

Thanks, Bob. Be sure to grab the latest version from the link on this page http://astronomy.mdodd.com/planalyzer.html . I tweaked the Log Analyzer to automatically calculate the time span between two log entries without the user having to click a button.

I'm finding Planalyzer to be very useful even with only a couple of days' use.

Mike

[Christopher Cappelli]

Mike,

This is a great utility - thank you for sharing it!

-Chris.

[Mike Dodd]

Mike,

This is a great utility - thank you for sharing it!

-Chris.

You're welcome.

I've added a time-fitting routine to Planalyzer that will adjust the count of multiple exposures so they complete by a specified time. Like Jim MacMillan, I often find myself wishing for an #IMAGEUNTIL directive. In lieu of this, now I can easily adjust the plan in Planalyzer to achieve the same result. See the attached screen shots.

Again, the link to the Planalyzer page on my Web site is http://astronomy.mdodd.com/planalyzer.html

[Dick Berg]

Hi Mike,

This keeps getting better and better! I have a question...

Where is focusing time accommodated? It is part of the Planner setup.

I have already made a pointer to this tool in the Reference Guide gold copy, but I'm out on travel and I forgot the server password (duh) so I can't upload the change until I get home on Sunday. Although I could put a copy of your Planalyzer on the ACP server, my pointer points to your web page instead. I think this is better so long as you're still incrementally improving the tool.