Release Notes for Scheduler V3.6

This release is for a number improvements to the web Schedule Browser and several areas of documentation, as well as for integration with the new ASCOM Fast Scriptable Access to MPC Comet Elements Database soft00cmt.txt (MPCCOMET) comet database facility. The latter allows putting comet names, numbers, and designations into the Planet specification of a scheduler Observation. This Hot Fix requires ACP 7.1, which already includes the MPCCOMET facility as part of its installation. While we were at it, though, a number of other annoying but modest and safe changes were applied! As this took shape, we found a number of obsolete bits of info in the documentation, which were corrected.

New Features and Improvements

• Support for comets via ASCOM MPCCOMET lookup has been added.
• The web schedule browser has received a face-lift, including help at the top on how to navigate into the Plans and Observations tables, how to go up a level. Also, the styling has been improved in several ways.
• Scheduler help now has information on how to schedule solar system objects by orbital elements.
• The PNG previews shown in the Share Your Sky! web interface are now processed with hot pixel removal, digital development, and gradient removal. This results in much better appearance in most cases.
• Several improvements have been made to the web Schedule Browser
• When running in Simulation mode, and with Extreme logging, the floods of "[sim] Weather connected" messages are now gone. The action of connecting and disconnecting the weather actually does this in the Weather Simulator, and only changes of state are logged.
• The Simulator sequencer now disconnects and reconnects weather for dawn cal frames and shutdown like the real ACP sequencer does.
• A link to open the ACP main web user interface has been added to the tree in the web Schedule Browser. The need for this will become apparent in the future.

Changes and Fixes

• Support of cometary elements for "D" type comets and for fragmentary comet names has been fixed.
• Several minor issues with comet and asteroid targets have been fixed.
• The RTML COM component has been moved out of ACP (7.1) and into the Scheduler, where it now belongs.
• The Astro Imaging and RTML submission forms in the web schedule browser have been removed. They have been superseded by more functional forms in the main ACP web user interface, Scheduled section.
• The AcquireScheduler script now properly sets its global lastFWHM so that the web user interface will show FWHM during image acquisition.
• Scheduler and ACP are now version locked. In this release, ACP 7.1 (at any hot fix level) is required. This pairing of versions will continue into the future.
• Communication of Last Autofocus Time (via LastAFTime.txt) is now supported for both the old and new locations for ACP config files.
• The Dawn Cal Frame docs have been corrected to remove the need for closing the dome/roof (in the plan). Scheduler does it now.
• The RTML importer and COM component have been changed to allow a Moon Avoidance Lorentzian of 180 degrees and 28 days (up from 90 degrees and 15 days). This allows configurations more suitable to astrophotography, where the Moon needs to be farther away for a given phase.
• The stats for Observations and Image Sets in the web schedule browser have been corrected for complex submissions.
• The "E-mail test successful" popup balloon message has been corrected to "E-mail sent"
• Error handling for bad Planet targets (MP, Comet) has been fixed.
• When running with ACP image simulation, the first image of an Observation now has the correct coordinates. This did not affect live observing.
• The web Schedule Browser forms and tables no longer depend on the old DBRelay object for a schedule database provider. This has now been built into ACP as its new Util.Scheduler object. This should improve both stability and speed.
• If MPCORB has never been initialized with an MPCORB.MDB database, the scheduler engine will no longer fail in a way that makes comet name look bad. Now it will gracefully skip minor planet recognition and succeed on a valid comet.
• Plans imported with RTML using the feature where the start and end times are equal to make it a "fixed time" plan will now run. Before all such plans failed with "missed time slot".
• The RTML importer file open dialog will now show files of type ".xml".
• The RTML importer and the ending will both now prevent Plans with a single Observation which has a SetCount of 1 from being set for Best Efforts. This is not a legal state for such Plans.
• The hour angle used for the RunDetail (HA*Cos(dec)) now has the correct sign (E vs W).
• The Scheduler Help on RTML has been fixed to include the API document for the scriptable RTML 2.3 wrapper component. In that document are clear diagrams of the RTML schema as well. This replaces the Liquid-generated help which was almost useless.
• The schedule pass no longer has the extra 15 seconds delay in it due to needless 5 second waits at three places where weather is tested to see if it is connected.
• Fix the case where local user (observatory operator) incorrectly had their files mapped to a web user "_".
• The title on viewed logfiles in the web Schedule Browser now reflects whether the log is the scheduler log or on of the ACP run logs for an Observation.
• The mostly annoying popup box on startup of the desktop Schedule Browser with the Scheduler not running has been eliminated.
• Importing and exporting of Plans and Observations has been fixed for several problems with the <LastSequencerLog> XML element.
• Database exporting and importing has been made more robust for empty elements in many places.
• The sample Sky Server code has been corrected in the Available property.
• The docs have been improved to state that ACP's option to automatically open on connect should not be set!
• Docs have been corrected for the periodic AutoFocus in hours not seconds.
• The startup script documentation has been clarified to note that the startup script should not open the dome.
• A bug in conversion from J2000 to local topocentric has been fixed. This could cause an error of a few arc minutes in the initial slew.

Release Notes for Scheduler V3.5.3 (Hot Fix)

Update for synchronization, weather, and dome control issues. No new features. The logic for handling weather unsafe/safe events has been extensively refactored to make it more robust for frequent changes in weather status. Also, the linkage between the Scheduler and ACP has been extended so that script errors in ACP scripts are passed back to the Scheduler for diagnosis and logging.

Changes and Fixes

• The web schedule browser's New Project form has been fixed for the case where there is only one observer in the schedule database.
• When the dispatcher opens the dome, it now waits for the completion of the initial slave slew. This assures the dome is positioned for observing immediately after the dispatcher has finished opening it.
• Weather is disconnected for dawn calibration frames, allowing same to be done in all weather conditions and without being interrupted by weather changes from safe to unsafe.
• Failure of the startup script is now detected by the Scheduler, which will now transition to Dead and send a mail message. This is a serious error.
• Logging of problems in the ACP run has been greatly improved. The **Script error** info from the ACP console is now logged into the Scheduler log to aid diagnosis.
• When connecting weather, defensive code has been added which checks retrieving safe/unsafe immediately after a successful connect. Some weather servers have a period where they don't really complete connecting when Connect is set to true. So this code waits, trapping errors, until the weather server starts returning data.
• It is no longer possible to start the dispatcher before the sequencer (ACP usually) has finished attaching and initializing. There were reports of people trying to start the dispatcher too soon, resulting in a 'dead' scheduler. The check box is now disabled to prevent this.
• Several cases where an operator abort of an ACP script started by Scheduler would result in a Dead or fatal error have been caught. These are RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED and RPC_E_SERVERCALL_RETRYLATER. Operator aborts in ACP should no longer kill Scheduler.
• The installer now properly accounts for Scheduler being installed on a drive other than C.
• The hack for MaxDome transitioning from Closed to Opening has been extended from 10 to 20 seconds to allow for Foster Systems domes which can report Closed after starting to open.
• The -dispatch command line switch for Scheduler.exe is now documented.
• The -dispatch command line switch would occasionally fail to get the dispatcher started due to a race with attaching and initializing the sequencer (ACP usually). This has been corrected.

Release Notes for Scheduler V3.5

This is a minor release for a couple of bugs and several small feature additions.

New Features and Improvements

• The web schedule browser now supports creation of new Projects, Plans, Observations, and ImageSets
• The UTC time at which a flip-wait will end is now reported in the ACP run logs for Scheduler Observations.
• A target that is "always below the observatory's visible horizon" is no longer a plan failure. Instead the Plan is vetoed for about 20 minutes so that it will be re-evaluated. Maybe it is then above the horizon in that direction!
• If the mount supports it, each slew to flip is checked for actual flip. If the flip was not done, the mount is explicitly flipped and then checked again. This all should never actually happen, but it was added as a hack for the Gemini mount which does not flip when it should under certain conditions.
• Diagnostic info for flip wait is now logged as it is for ACP-only observing plans.
• The plain white icons used in the tree section of the web schedule browser have been improved and show their function now.
• Periodic AF will now happen in any sky condition if no real sky server is connected. If a real sky server is connected, AF will not be done in Poor skies.
• In the web schedule browser, the project data table how shows projects with running plans highlighted (the run % is still displayed, but it too is highlighted if the number > 0).
• Uncompressed image files are now deleted if the image is compressed for a web user.
• The logging level is now written to the scheduler log on startup, when the log is rotated (daily), and whenever the logging level is changed.
• Both the scheduler log and the ACP run logs now report not only the Observation that is being acquired, but its parent Plan and grandparent Project.
• E-mail sending now supports TLS and SSL3 security as needed by most SMTP mail servers nowadays.
• A balloon popup now appears when a successful e-mail test has completed.
• E-mail sending errors now report the complete error including any "inner exceptions" that may be present.
• E-mail sending now logs the type (or lack of) e-mail security when sending messages (logged at Debug level and higher).
• The From: address of generated email messages can now be configured.
• The Scheduler engine's configuration form (property grid) has been reorganized more logically (instead of alphabetically).

Changes and Fixes

• A timing hole where weather was not being checked before making a decision has been plugged.
• Observing logic (AcquireScheduler) has been fixed to prevent a script error when guider startup fails with an external guidescope and with image exposure time aggregation enabled.
• The web schedule browser has been fixed so that the browsing tree works in both compatibility mode and standards mode of Internet Explorer 9.
• The web schedule browser now has a fixed area for the tree control, and scrolling within that area when needed.
• The $PRJCONT file/folder (ImageFileConfig) substitution token has been fixed. It was not inserting anything in the name.
• The sample startup script now runs Clarity as an executable before connecting. This has been found to prevent strange Clarity errors (when creating ActiveX object starts it).
• The sample shutdown script no longer (harmlessly) disconnects weather. This is managed inside Scheduler now.
• The RTML Importer now clears the Project and Plan collections at the start of each import. This allows a single instance of the component to be used for multiple imports.
• The dome controller now gracefully recovers from a hardware dome closure while starting up and opening the dome.
• The installer now sets two permissions that were needed for Scheduler to run on Windows 7 with User Account Control on (the default).
• The missing "tiny info" image used in some web forms has been included in the installer.
• The default VOEvent receiver filter has been enhanced to detect VOEvent 2.0 (and other non-VOEvent 1.1) messages and report it in a nice way instead of a filter error. We will add VOEvent 2.0 compatibility in the future.
• The test mosaic grid generator settings and selector has been removed. This was never implemented.
• Trying to generate a test project with ACP as the sequencer and with its telescope disconnected no longer causes a fatal error.
• A spurious 'var' in the Importing and Exporting Schedule Data help has been corrected.
• The config item for periodic autofocus time now properly un-bolds when set to its default value of zero.
• The "are you sure?" popup for deleting image sets in the web Schedule Browser has been corrected.

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V3.4

This is a small release, mainly for supporting the new forms integration with the ACP main web interface. The older submission forms are still in the Scheduler web UI, but will be removed eventually. The Scheduler UI will turn into something like a web-based Schedule Browser. Also this release picks up some startup and shutdown sequencing issues relating to weather unsafe events during startup and shutdown.

New Features and Improvements

• The ACP image acquisition logic for scheduler runs has been integrated with the ACP web UI. The System Status now shows details on the Plan, Observation, and ImageSet progress, and shows thumbnail and preview images. No more "Utility Script".
• It is now possible to control the latch time on weather safe (formerly fixed at 10 minites). This allows disabling latching for systems which have weather servers with their own latching feature.
• The scheduler may now be started with a command line switch -d or -dispatch (also / form of options) to auto-start the dispatcher on startup.
• New forms within the ACP main web UI have been added for astro-imaging and science imaging.
• The new input forms have time range and "run now" inputs.
• The new forms have alternative user-controlled autofocus checkbox if periodic autofocus is disabled.
• Web users' compression preferences are now honored.
• Documentation has bee updated and expanded in several areas.

Changes and Fixes

• Closed several holes in automatic observatory startup and shutdown where weather unsafe events during these processes would result in bad things happening.
• When saving images for web users, the logic now populates newly created folders with the .asp support files needed for the web UI's file browsing controls.
• The dome is specifically unparked/unhomed after opening now.
• Fixed a fatal error if not saving raw autocal images.
• Fixed fatal error if bad orbital elements are in a second or subsequent linked Observation.
• AcquireScheduler now reports a useful error message if creating a folder with a non-existent drive letter, and will no longer recurse till the stack is full.
• The sample startup script no longer contains tracking on/off commands which caused an error for a low-hanging roof situation. It was an old hack for the Paramount, no longer needed ayway.

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V3.3

This turned out to be a fairly major release. It is "paired" with ACP V6.0, which has new automation interfaces which are incompatible with earlier Scheduler versions. Images and ACP run logs resulting from web submissions are now automatically routed to the web user's normal (ACP) images and logs folders. No more hacking with ImageFileConfig.txt is needed. The most important bugs fixed were scheduler failures at dusk and dawn when the weather is unsafe. Guiding decision logic has been enhanced, including honoring the new ACP 6.0 "Disable Aggregation" setting, and pointing updates are now only done when needed per the ACP "Max Slew Without Pointing Update" setting.

Critical Changes:

New Features and Improvements

• Requests submitted via the Scheduler web forms will result in the ACP run logs and images taken going into the web user's logs and images folders so they can be retrieved via FTP or the ACP web user interface.
• A new feature "resubmit plans which fail due to weather unsafe" has been added. If a Plan fails for weather unsafe, it is immediately resubmitted in its entirety and will be eligible when the weather becomes safe later. This is an option and can be enabled/disabled in the Scheduler config form.
• A new TimeRange constraint has been added. It allows constraining observations between Julian dates. It is not yet available in RTML or via the web interface. That will require some large changes which have been deferred to a future release. For now, use the desktop Schedule Browser to set this constraint.
• Guiding decisions now honor the new ACP 6.0 "Disable aggregation" option, allowing multiple unguided exposures whose sum of intervals exceed max unguided exposure interval.
• The web user interface now has an additional level of status detail, a table of Observations.
• The web user interface now allows access to the Scheduler log and the last ACP sequencer logs for completed and failed Observations.
• The scheduler engine logs are now rotated once a day, at approximately local solar transit.
• Pointing updates are now optimized according to ACP's "Max Slew Without Pointing Update" setting.
• All scheduler-sent email messages now contain a link to view the scheduler's engine log.
• The RTML uploading web form now asks if the Plans created should be immediately made eligible to run.
• Plan Completion emails now contain a list of links to view the ACP logs for each Observation.
• The desktop browser now allows dots ('.') in Project, Plan, Observation, and ImageSet names (in the tree).
• Image acquisition process has been made friendly to DropBox and other cloud-synced destination folders.
• It is now possible to customize the folder and file naming for the ACP run logs produced for each Scheduler Observation.
• The standard VOEvent filter now includes the new MLSOT alerts from Catalina Real Time Transient Survey as part of the CAT class.
• The web interface has been improved for accessibility; scroll bars no longer appear on the tree and table areas. Everything can be accessed via the main browser vertical scrollbar. Clickiong in a tree node automatically resets the browser scroll to the top so the forms display without the user having to scroll back up.

Changes and Fixes

• The desktop schedule browser and the scheduler's test project generator have been fixed for an unintentional time limit of 12/31/2010 in date/time pickers. This caused the browser to crash on selecting any plan, and the scheduler to crash when the test project form was opened.
• RTML imported via the web interface now has its Request/UserName forced to be that of the logged in ACP user. This assures that the request will be entered under the Scheduler Observer for that logged-in user.
• Sky condition (if available) is now checked before doing all things (like the initial autofocus) which depend on it (not just at the start of a schedule pass). The readout on the scheduler's main window reflects the sky condition which the scheduler is using (or just used) not the 'live" sky condition. This is by design.
• Tracking is now turned on prior to starting FocusMax in AcquireStar mode.
• Periodic Autofocus now always results in the first thing in the evening being an autofocus, rather than doing it after the first target (if one is immediately eligible).
• If periodic autofocus fails, each time it fails thereafter (in a row) an additional 5 minutes is added to the time before it is tried again, up to a maximum of 20 minutes. This prevents the situation where horrible skies and and nothing to observe result in continuous back-to-back autofocus attempts.
• Periodic autofocus will no longer be attempted in fair skies, only good and excellent.
• An Observation with an explicit autofocus option now results in the correct extension of the next periodic AF.
• The "too close to slew limits/horizon" check is avoided when using FocusMax AcquireStar (which itself picks a "good" location for the focus star).
• Periodic autofocus timing now takes into account an autofocus failure. The Next periodic autofocus will now be done based on the last successful autofocus. This required additional support in ACP to store the last successful AF time in a file accessible to the Scheduler.
• Web page editors for Plan, Observation and ImageSet no longer truncate status and reason messages which contain an apostrophe.
• The web projects display now correctly shows running plans in the Run column.
• Several improvements to Best Efforts processing were made.
• The Day/Night testing mode has been fixed so it does Open and Periodic Autofocus.
• String configuration items such as log directory and sky server can now be set to the empty string.
• The alert VOEvent message now has correctly encoded data access URLs.
• The exposure interval for a stacked image from a repeated ImageSet is now calculated by summing the actual exposure intervals, as obtained from their FITS headers. This was done to accommodate UserAction.ImageStart modifications to the exposure interval, which will not be reflected in the ImageSet info in the schedule database.
• An obscure bug in the Airmass Range constraint for circumpolar targets has been fixed.
• The ACP acquisition script AcquireScheduler.vbs has been fixed for the case where there are no filters installed.
• The Import/Export docs now warn that XML data is database-version-dependent.
• The Sky Condition input server interface and usage is now documented (in Advanced Features).
• The Monitor Mode feature was fixed so that resubmissions will occur when the dispatcher is left running 24/7.
• The Monitor Mode database calculations have been made more efficient through the use of a database-stored SQL query. See the critical change above.
• The camera warming logic now handles cameras which start warming very slowly.
• Docs now describe the use of RTML Reason field for enabling Monitor Mode on Plans.
• Domes which rotate but which do not have shutter control are no longer fatal to the Scheduler.
• Documentation now includes info on temporary workaround that use text fields for newly added features.
• A template SkyServer (Windows Script Component) is now included in the package.
• The installer no longer installs a (possibly old) copy of AcquireSupport.
• A couple of bugs relating to the weather being unsafe when the observatory would otherwise be started, or would be started (in unsafe weather) for dawn cal frames have been fixed. These caused fatal scheduler exceptions (status "dead").
• The installer now honors ACP's actual web document root when installing the scheduler web support files.
• The database compaction feature has been removed. The database interfaces included with Windows 7 do not support the compaction feature.
• Several problems with the Constraint SDK have been fixed, the project start ReadMe has been improved.
• The VOEvent parser has been fixed for an obscure bug in its strict mode
• The VOEvent "closed loop" alerter has been fixed for an error in the followup VOEvent messages. This was introduced by an update in the code-binding package used.
• The Simulator configuration Web Document Root and Web URL Base items were mixed up. This has been fixed.
• Importing RTML with a declination greater than 90 degrees or less than -90 degrees no longer results in a severe error. It just fails gracefully.
• Many small changes to the Scheduler help content have been made. Much of it relates to RTML importing (and the new features of the web RTML importer).

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V3.2

This is a minor release, made necessary by the breaking of Dawn Flats during the final stage of testing of 3.1. Several additional small things were done post-3.1 and have been included:

New Features

• Email alerts now include the observatory name (from ACP). This was requested by New Mexico Skies, to help identify the source of trouble alerts.
• The VOEvent filter has been enhanced to optionally ignore CATOT events which have Citations/EventIVORN/supersedes (previously reported transients).
• The installer now puts the latest versions of ReceiverData items into a subfolder Original under ReceiverData. This allows users to update their customized ReceiverData files (which are never replaced by the installer, and therefore may be old with respect to added features, etc.).
• The installer will not replace existing (and possibly modified) files in ReceiverData, however it will always leave the latest standard versions of these files in a subfolder Standard Files. Thus, you can merge your changes into any new versions of thes files. Nonetheless, if you modify any of these files, you should give them your own names and reconfigure the Receiver to use yours.
• Image compression (zipping) can be enabled with a simple edit to AcquireScheduler.vbs. See Advanced Feautures.
• BestEfforts Plans will no longer fail for an Observation that has an autoguiding failure. The Observation will continue unguided.
• Autoguiding failures can be made non-fatal for all Observations via a simple edit to AcquireScheduler.vbs. See Advanced Features.

Changes and Fixes

• Dawn Flats have been fixed. This was the primary reason for the 3.2 release.
• Fixed the case where an Observation has a repeat count > 1 and specifies unguided dithered images. This was failing in the second repeat with an Overflow message due to uninitialized "last slew" coordinates whieh were being used as the dithering base. Unguided dithering now uses the telescope's J2000 coordinates as the dithering base.
• Fixed bug where application of constraints on Best Efforts plans failed to account for already completed Observation repeats. This would cause early termination of Best Efforts plans.
• Fixed bug where application of constraints just before acquisition, which was for Best Efforts only, was being done for all Plans. This should be harmless as non-best efforts will have already been checked, during selection for eligibility. This appeared when solving the previous problem, and resulted in misleading log messages.
• AcquireScheduler was not explicitly turning on sidereal tracking at start of an Observation. This has been fixed.
• Error reporting from RTML Importing by file has been fixed so the detailed problem and line number are now reported. This was not a problem when importing from an RTML string.
• Followup alert VOEvent messages have been fixed for two VOEvent format errors (incorrect attribute name and unencoded URL).

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V3.1

New Features

• A new feature, Monitor Mode, has been added. Plans can be marked for automatic resubmission at a given interval in days. In addition, the "Must run after" time now also indicates when monitoring stops, if the monitor interval is non-zero. See Advanced Features, Monitor Mode. Both the desktop browser and the web forms have this new mode added.
• All auto-focus operations are now done by the dispatcher ad the beginning of the night, after weather interrupts, and per the periodic autofocus intervals. The dispatcher uses a special auto-focus script (AutoFocusScheduler.vbs). Unless ACP is set to use FocusMax's AcquireStar feature, this script points the scope at azimuth 070 and altitude 70 deg before starting auto-focus. This avoids focusing at low altitudes as could happen with the previous in-Observation logic.
• Auto-Flip logic has been improved, making the flip tests more accurate so that the flip margins may be reduced. Default flip margins have been reduced.
• The filter names and binning for the photometry request and photometry survey forms can now be customized. See Getting Started in Web Browser Access and Submission.
• Added dithering input fields to all web submission forms. Users can specify dithering amount or "auto".
• The ImageSet editor's dither control is now an input field, allowing user specification of dither amount or "auto".
• The time at which the dispatcher will open up (run StartupObs) is now configurable, relative to local sunset (0 seg Sun altitude).
• Email notices now have a separate mode for controlling whether plan notices (completion, failure) are sent. This allows the observator operator to be notified of things like startup/shutdown, serious problems, and weather interrupts, without receving zillions of plan notices.
• The email server domain or IP address can now include an optional port number.
• Email notices are now sent for data acquisition failures in the sequencer. These are not fatal to the scheduler, and are noted so.
• Add the ability to have ACP run logs put into the web-visible logs area for a given ACP web user account. See the Advanced Features page.
• Add the ability to have the scheduler engine and VOEvent receiver logs to be written to custom directories. This was added to allow these logs to be web visible, but may be used for other purposes. See the Advanced Features page.
• Added a test menu item to test scheduler-initiated auto focus.
• The scheduler engine logger now outputs to the Windows trace system. You can now use Sysinternals' DebugView utility to monitor the log in real time.
• A new logging level "Extreme" has been added. This is the only mode in which the huge volume of Efficiency calculation logging is done. Debug level is now much easier to work with.

Changes and Fixes

• Fixed best efforts logic so time slot clashes are again honored. This was a serious mistake in 3.0. Was actually fixed in 3.0 Hot Fix 1.
• Auto-Flip logic now correctly handles sub-polar (west-to-east) flipping.
• The web schedule browser now has the Auto-focus checkbox on the Observation editor.
• The main dispatcher logic has been extensively reorganized and simplified.
• You can now view the log via the Scheduler's "View Log" menu option even when the dispatcher is running.
• Rising Plan Delay was not compensating for the time span of single-Observation plans. This was harmless, but non-optimal. This has been corrected.
• Logging of Rising Plan Delay deferral was wrong, showed current time. Now shows deferral-expires time.
• Additional logging in new SuperDebug mode for Rising Plan Delay.
• Corrected the Moon Avoidance Lorentzian calculation by normalizing the Width value to phase.
• The SkyCondition constraint deferral time has been reduced to 15 minutes.
• It is now possible to turn on dither for single images in the desktop browser.
• The Rising Plan Delay "debug" log messages have been reworded for clarity.
• Dawn calibration frames (bias and dark) are now acquired even in unsafe weather conditions.
• The test plan generator for astro-imaging has been changed to generate request in accordance with the strategy implemented by the web UI's astro-imaging request form. It now generates blocks of up to 1 hours each, for 4 filters on the same target.
• The web photometry submission pages have been fixed for the case where only the first 'V' row had image(s). This was being reported as "No images specified".
• Planner produces RTML with dither value of 999 for "auto". The RTML importer now correctly interprets this.
• Dusk and dawn flats will no longer be done if the sky condition is poor
• The date/time fields in the desktop Browser's Plan form now display properly when a Plan is first viewed.
• Test menu functions no longer block the user interface, they run in their own temporary thread
• The simulator sky server is no longer "always active". It can now be controlled with the config setting.
• The VOEvent receiver's default settings for subscriber and publisher broker(s) point to the new DC-3 Dreams broker at voevent.dc3.com. The default ports are the standard 8099 and 8098 respectively.

Known Issues

• If the dispatcher is stopped during observing with ACP, or if a VOEvent interrupts ACP while observing, a database connection is leaked. At present there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid this, so if you do a lot of interrupting while observing, eventually you should stop and restart ACP to free those leaked connections.

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V3.0 Hot Fix 1

New Features and Changes (HF1)

• FlipConfig processing has been fixed. Scheduler now properly honors FlipConfig limits.
• AutoStacking when ACP UserActions are active has been fixed.
• Post-Autofocus pointing updates are now properly done if the AF occurs during the second or higher repeat of an Observation (e.g. time series).
• The Hot Pixel correction is now implemented.
• The Must Run Before field in the web based scheduler browser has been fixed.
• The web based RTML uploader now correctly redirects and refreshes the page like the other uploading forms.
• The web based ImageSet editor now allows Dither for only 1 image.
• The Dark, Bias, and Flat correction processes have been fixed. They were not saving back to the image file.
• New logic has been added for the Hot Pixel correction option in ImageSet.
• The help file now contains instructions for using the Dark, Bias, Flat, and Hox Pixel corrections in ImageSet.
• The help for transient astronomy (VOEvent), Getting Started, has been corrected for the new address of the Caltech event broker.
• The help file now contains instructions on programmatically uploading RTML to the Scheduler via the ACP web server.
• The prototype.js library for the web based interface has been updated to V1.6.0.3.
• A missing web form, Photometric Survey, is now included.
  

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V3.0

Features and Changes for 3.0

• A new system for doing cal frames (darks/biases) at the end of each observing night has been added. This requires ACP 5.1 Hot Fix 8 or later. See the Dawn Calibration Frames section for details.
• Dusk and dawn sky flats have been simplified by requiring specific ACP flat plans, rather than allowing ACP's flat plan selection logic to select the flat plan. This makes it much easier to set up and understand.
• Importing of ACP observing plans is now supported. See Importing and Exporting.
• The documentation has been completely overhauled and greatly expanded. As you can see, it now resides in Microsoft HTML Help, fully searchable and indexed. The Browser splash page now has a pretty picture on it!
• The menus have been reorganized, and the (now) Utility menu has new functions for testing autoflats, dawn cal frames, startup, and shutdown.
• The remote/web accessible interface now has a new status page listing statistics for the Plans belonging to a particular project, as well as a new a submission form suitable for photometric survey work.
• Scheduler's plan start/end email alerts now go to both the configured address(es) as well as to the email address of the Project contact (if present).
• It is now possible to disable per-observer priority normalization. With it disabled, all observers are put on a common single priority scale. The web user interface now reflects this setting in the comments next to the Priority fields.
• Best Efforts has been extended so that an Observation that misses its time slot will not cause the entire Plan to fail. In addition, time-slot clash checks are now skipped for Best Efforts Plans. Two stored procedures in the database were changed to accommodate these changes. The changes were made to provide much better behavior when multiple long time series are running Best Efforts.
• Email alerts on Plan completion are now sent to the Project contact or the Observer that owns the Project if either email field contains an email address.
• The object ID of the sky condition server is now configurable.
• A tray balloon now announces changes in sky condition.
• The VOEvent receiver has been overhauled and greatly expanded in its functions. Most importantly, it now has a facility for sending VOEvents whenever follow up observing is done in response to an incoming VOEvent. Here are the things that were added/changed in the VOEvent receiver.
  • An all-new "follow up alerting" feature has been added. When enabled, any time your observatory acquires images in response to an incoming VOEvent, a "follow up" VOEvent message will be sent out to the worldwide network. At a minimum, this will allow the originators of the event to know that there is follow up data available.
  • The follow up alerting system has its own web pages which dynamically update as follow up observing plans complete. They provide detailed info on the follow up images taken at your observatory and provide a way for interested parties to get the original FITS data.
  • It is now supplied with templates and filter logic to receive VOEvents from Swift (GRB), INTEGRAL (GRB) and the Catalina Sky Survey Transient detections.
  • The event transmission system has been enhanced and validated for use with the Caltech VOEventNet broker. The receiver uses the Simple TCP (aka VTCP) protocol rather than Jabber. As of Jan 2009, Simple TCP is not yet listed on the VOEventNet page but it is supported. See Configuring the Receiver
  • Both the receiver and the new alerter now support Digital Signatures in accordance with a proposal made last year by Robert B. Denny's IVOA Note A Proposal for Digital Signatures in VOEvent Messages.
  • There is no more "default" observing plan template (which was really for GRBs). Instead, the filter is required to return the name of the RTML template to be used for the type of event it is passing through to the system.
  • The old VOEvent parser has been replaced with a new parser-generator built via the Liquid XML Builder. This is a much more powerful and accurate XML tool compared to the "serialization" tools provided by Microsoft.
  • The MessageArchiver VOEvent pre-patcher is now installed by default. It has also been changed so the messages are now archived into My Documents\ACP Astronomy\VOEvent Archive instead of the old folder under Program Files. This puts the archived messages into a location next to the VOEvent Receiver Logs.
  • The capabilities and flexibility of the filter system have been greatly expanded.
  • The old drop-list for generating a test (fake) event has been replaced with a new set of real menus which provide expanded capability.
  • The new filter script has been refactored to make it easier to add your own filter logic.
  • Test messages for the three standard alert types, as well as two "user" types of events now come from template VOEvent messages in XML.
  • The receiver no longer makes a permanent change to the Windows Scripting Host (cscript.exe) defaults. It specifies the needed mode on its command line(s).
  • A 30 second delay in queuing VOEvents has been eliminated. This only happened when the dispatcher was stopped. In that case, a special balloon message appeared warning you that an event arrived but the scheduler was stopped. That balloon was blocking the next balloon, the one announcing the queuing of the observations for the event.
  • Email configuration has been simplified and the descriptive text in the configuration window has been clarified.
  • Many many small changes and additions to the receiver and the filtering system have been made.
• The RTML importer has been overhauled to use a new parser-generator build via the Liquid XML builder. It's error reporting (thanks to Liquid) is much more detailed.
• The RTML Importer cannot tell if the scheduler has a single-user license. Therefore, if it finds that there is only one user/observer in the database, it ignores the UserName field and imports everything under that one existing user. This is a kludge, but the alternatives are worse.
• A couple of new substitution tokens have been added to the custom file/folder naming system. These are primarily intended for the VOEvent Receiver's automatic data access web pages.
• Several areas of the dispatcher have been refactored to improve performance and simplify logic.
• The AcquireScheduler script has been modified to support new features added in this upgrade.
• The AcquireScheduler script now puts correct values into the CLRBAND field of the FITS header if the actual filter in use has a Johnson-Cousins name (U, B, V, R, or I). PinPoint adds this header unconditionally, so it needs to be correct if possible.
• Automatic database compacting has been fixed for a couple of edge conditions.
• A new Constraint Software Development Kit (SDK) has been added, allowing easy creation of custom constraint plugins.
• A bug in constraint handling where a constraint with "Constraint" in its name would fail to initialize the database has been fixed.
• The browser now correctly displays the database tree after deleting an Observer.
• The test project generator has been enhanced so it can be used when the scheduler is in "live" mode (using ACP). It no longer forces the mode to simulation, and also starts generating the test project for the current time if it is night.
• The remote/web interface has been improved so it no longer gives the "session expired" message, requiring you to reload the page. In addition, the Javascript logic for the tree display has been updated for a few obscure bugs, and numerous other little things were smoothed out.
• The Dark Frames checkbox has been removed from the Browser's ImageSet pane. This feature was never implemented. Dark and bias frames should be acquired using the new Dawn Calibration Frames feature.

Older Release Notes for Scheduler V2.1

Features and Changes for V2.1

• A new remote/web-accessible schedule browser is now included. See Remote Browser.
• A new remote/web-accessible Astro-Imaging request submission form is now included. This allows astro-imagers to quickly submit a long run, and breaks it down into many small plans (1 image each).
• A new remote/web-accessible RTML uploading form is now included.
• A new VOEvent receiver for transient astronomy. This replaces the old GRB receiver and provides greatly expanded capabilities. See the Transient Astronomy help topic.
• It is now possible to observe an old transient astronomical event (GRB) that was not observable at the time it was received, but becomes observable at some later time.
• The ACP AcquireScheduler.vbs script now supports ACP 5.1's meridian flip adjustments (FlipConfig.txt).
• The ACP AcquireScheduler.vbs script now avoids needless slews and pointing updates at the start of the second and subsequent repeats of an Observation.
• The ACP AcquireScheduler.vbs script now preserves guiding across ImageSets if the guider is external. Guiding is still (re) started at the beginning of each (repeated) Observation.
• Recentering is no longer skipped after a single image in an image set. It is done after every image acquired except the very last one in an Observation (and then only the last repeat of that observation).
• It is now possible to invoke an alternate ACP observing script (instead of AcquireScheduler.vbs) for special purposes.
• A bug in AcquireScheduler.vbs for auto-flip before pointing update has been fixed.
• The old "GRB Observer" observer is not used any more. The new VOEvent receiver can specify the observer name for transient astronomy plans.
• The receiver (now VOEvent) no longer has its own horizon setting. It now uses the horizon limits from ACP (or the simulator) for visibility tests and generation of fake events.
• The receiver now uses the emailer in the scheduler instead of its own. Thus, it is no longer necessary to separately configure email in the receiver.
• The observing strategy for responding to GRBs is no longer hard coded. It is possible to specify the strategy via a template RTML document.
• When importing RTML, if no project name is given, use the UTC data as the project name instead of "Unnamed...".
• The test menu's "resubmit all" function now properly updates the Project and Plan icons in the tree.
• In simulation mode, the sky condition can now be set to change randomly during the simulation.
• The log level for several items was changed to make the brief log easier to read.
• Startup, shutdown weather save/unsave and twilight flat events are now logged in brief mode.
• Simulations may now span multiple days (config setting). Date has been added to the log to support this new feature.
• A new setting has been added to allow control of the dispatcher's "stop at sunrise" action. It is now possible to do multi-night simulations without operator intervention.
• It is now possible for scripts to disable a constraint in an observation by setting the parameters to null.
• The ACP sequencer logic now waits long enough for script completion to allow a chain from one script to another. This was added for special applications.

Known Issues

• If the dispatcher is stopped during observing with ACP, or if a VOEvent interrupts ACP while observing, a database connection is leaked. At present there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid this, so if you do a lot of interrupting while observing, eventually you should stop and restart ACP to free those leaked connections.