Scheduling scheduler!

[Andre Germain]

Hello,

first off, only now have I tried the web method, most impressed! I can't see any other product enabling my observatory in a way it never did before! There is a considerable amount of work and thought that went into this product. Kudos.

Now the question - I read the help files concerning getting ACP to schedule work and running scripts to get the observatory running (or shutting it down) depending on weather and such, but it seems it would take quite some doing considering that my DIY observatory controls the dome, scope, focuser & guide camera via ASCOM, does the safing using sky clock, weather display with Davis pro weather station and the SQM-LE sky meter, controls the facility power via X10 (ftp commands to a local server) and finally tons of USB. But I had a flash this morning, and realized that with some simple coding, my observatory code could be made to run always on my PC, and activate the facilities, start Maxim, ACP, focus max when the observatory is ready to image under clear skies. I've already done so, and everything comes up nicely. Is it a problem to then kill these apps when its not safe, or the sun has come up. I admit its draconian, but already as discussed elsewhere I had to remove the azimuth control of the dome from ACP. My assumption is that ACP's scheduler will run fine, look up its tasks and run away happy.

Cheers

[Bob Denny]

Andre --

The short answer is yes! ACP Scheduler will run a shutdown script at the appropriate time each morning, then run the startup script at the appropriate time each late afternoon, while managing the dome shutter or roof. If you have a reliable source of weather, ACP Scheduler will also stop observing when the weather gets too poor or dangerous, then when the weather becomes OK for observing, it will again start your observatory and resume observing with the targets that are appropriate for that time.

If you decide to go ahead with the licenses, you'll have access to the premium support areas here. In the one for ACP, there are sample startup and shutdown scripts which do everything but power outlet control (there are too many different web/script/cmd controllable power strips out there). There are people here who have implemented power control though and they can help, plus I will help also!