Routine Use: TheSky X or TheSky 6

If you haven't yet read the introduction to ACP Planner, do so now! Then come back here. Make sure you read about mouse-wheel time control! And if you have an imager rotator, be sure to look at Imager Rotators.

Your version of TheSky X must be 10.1.10 or later. If you have TheSky X installed, it will be used. If not, and you have TheSky 6 installed, it will be used. Your version of TheSky 6 must be 6.0.0.55 or later.

Starting a new ACP Plan

There are four ways to capture targets from TheSky:

• Clicking on an object in the virtual sky
• Center of an FOV indicator
• The center coordinates of the virtual sky
• From the Mosaic tool (see Importing a Mosaic from TheSky)

Mouse-Wheel Time Control

Mouse-wheel time stepping works only when the ACP Plan Capture or Quick Capture window has the focus. Click on ACP Plan/Quick Capture's title bar to highlight it, and then mouse-wheel time stepping will work. You'll see TheSky's display rotate about the celestial axis reflecting the time change in the virtual sky.

As you'll see, this is one of the best features of ACP Planner. TheSky's controls don't make it easy to move its time around, but ACP Planner adds mouse-wheel stepping to TheSky's time controls! If your mouse has a wheel you can use it to change the time in TheSky with a flick of your finger. With each step of rotation of the mouse-wheel, TheSky's time changes forwards or backwards and the virtual sky rotates to reflect the changes in objects' positions. You can control how far time moves for each wheel-step as follows:

Start Planning

1. Double-click the TheSky Plan Capture icon on your Desktop. Both TheSky and the Planner will start if they weren't already running. You will see a small floating window with three buttons and a blank area below.
2. In TheSky's Data menu, select Time... This will open the Time window.
3. Click the "stop" button to halt time flow in TheSky. This is really important.
4. Move to a time early in the evening and pick an object that is in a favorable position.

If the plan capture applet says that the time is in the past (and you think it should not be) and you are planning for a location in another time zone, be sure you understand that TheSky's clock shows the time at the (remote) observatory not at your location.

Click to Capture Object

This method does not support FOVI use for capture of the Position Angle (PA) for an imager rotator. If you have an imager rotator, then you'll be asked to enter the PA when the target is captured.

1. Click the "Click in TheSky..." button, it will turn gray. (It will stay gray until you adjust TheSky's time outside any observation.)
2. Now click on your target in TheSky. Zoom in enough to be sure you get the target you want.
3. You will now see another small window appear with a list of the targets that TheSky has at the location you clicked. Choose the one you want and either double-click it in the list or click the OK button.
4. If you are asked for the Position Angle of the target, enter it. You can edit this later.

Capture From FOV Indicator

An FOV indicator is not required unless you need to capture the Position Angle for an imager rotator. If you do, only one FOVI can be enabled and it must be screen-referenced (red) as well as centered (use the Center button in the My FOVIs panel).

1. Be sure your FOV indicator is centered (TheSky View menu, Field Of View Indicators..., select the visible FOVI, click Center).
2. Right-click and center an object, or right-click-drag the virtual sky to place your target under the centered FOV indicator as desired. Do not move the FOVI itself.
3. In the ACP Plan Capture applet, click Current FOV or Center of TheSky.

If you inadvertently move the FOVI away from the center of TheSky, you will get a pop-up error message telling you how to re-center it using TheSky's FOVI controls.

Capture of the Center of TheSky (no FOV indicator)

You can capture the coordinates of the center of TheSky's display without using a FOV indicator. If you have an imager rotator, then you'll be asked to enter the PA when the target is captured.

1. Center the location in TheSky where you want your image(s) to be acquired. For example, in TheSky you can right click on an object or location and select Center, then right-click-drag to move the sky around and adjust the position relative to the center.
2. In the ACP Plan Capture applet, click Current FOV or Center of TheSky.

Completing a Capture

1. When the ACP Planner window appears, fill in the image set specs for your object, selecting filters, exposure counts, exposure times, and binning levels.
2. Now click Update to save your image sets for this target.
3. If you want, rename the object by clicking or right clicking it in the list.
4. Click on TheSky to bring it back to the front and continue to plan. Don't close the Planner.

At this point you'll notice that TheSky's time has jumped to the ending time for the target you just added! Also, in the ACP Plan Capture applet's window, you'll see a new display that tells you time left to observe, time before an observation starts, etc. This will help you to move time around to select additional objects throughout the night.

The "Click in TheSky..." button will be grayed out if TheSky's time is within an existing observation. The "Target at Current Telescope..." button will be grayed out if TheSky is not linked to your telescope.

Editing Existing Targets

You can also make changes to the targets already in the list. Bring Planner to the front and right click on the desired target and select Edit... This causes the Edit name window to appear. You can change the name, coordinates, and start time. Click OK to save your changes. You will be warned if your new start time overlaps another target when you click OK, and the Edit name window will stay open.

Dusk and Dawn Flats Options

You should look at Automatic Sky Flats before using these options. If you enable either or both of the the Take Flat Fields options for your plan, ACP Planner will include a command to start the ACP automatic sky-flat system at the beginning and/or send of the plan. If you select dusk flats, you must start your observing before dusk twilight; a half hour before sunset will do. Also, do not delete the first #waituntil directive in the plan, or your imaging will start right after the dusk flats. Not a good time! If you select dawn flats, your imaging must end early enough for the dawn flats to be acquired before the sun gets too high. If you're doing in-planetarium planning, this should be easy to determine. After your imaging completes, the dawn flat process will simply wait until the sky conditions are right for acquiring your flats. If your imaging runs too long, the dawn flats will simply be skipped (and you'll have some washed out images too!).

The observatory operator should have already set up ACP's automatic sky-flat system to take a standard set of dawn flats. Confirm this.

Saving Your Plan

Once you have completed your night's plan, you need to save it to a text file for input to ACP.

1. Bring the planner to the front and select File/Save as...
2. If you want to add any comments at the top of your plan, enter them into the Add Comments window that first appears.
3. Click OK to close the Add Comments window.
4. Next the File/Save-as window will appear. The first time you use the Planner, you'll notice that the save window is already located in the My Documents\ACP Astronomy\Plans folder. This is where ACP looks for plans by default (assuming you are running ACP locally). Thereafter, it remembers the folder into which you saved the previous plan.
5. If needed, select a folder then give your plan file a name and save it.
6. If you have ACP installed on your computer, you'll now be asked if you want to run your plan in ACP now. If you have ACP, MaxIm, and your observatory instruments running and ready to go, click the checkbox and then answer Yes -- the plan will start. It will, of course, wait until the start time of the first object.

   If not, and you answer No:

   1. Next, you'll see your ACP plan file appear in Notepad. If you want, give it a last check here. You can make last minute changes to image set specs. It's pretty easy to understand. But if the format is a bit daunting, don't worry, just close Notepad.
   2. At this point, you can either run your plan in ACP whenever, or upload it via the web and run it remotely.

Creating a Flat Plan

If you're an advanced user and want to create a flat plan for your observing plan, ACP Planner can do this by scanning your plan and making a flat plan that acquires just the flats needed to calibrate the images in your observing plan. For more information on this, see Automatic Sky Flats and Flat Planning.