The scheduling option selection for Greedy vs Classis is recently missing from the sequencer menu; the selection option of Classic vs Greedy has dissapeared.
Is there a selection option that would make the option available?

Dan,

Please see here: indilib.org/forum/general/13537-schedule...gorithm-changes.html

In summary: in our beta code (and forward into our future releases) we have retired the "Classic" scheme in favor of always using the "Greedy" scheduling algorithm.

Please let us know if you are experiencing any issues because of this.
Hy

Hy,
Thank you for clarifying.

I typically run a sequencer plan with 10 or 12 entries of the same target and 10 to 15 minutes for each entry. I have re-aligning set when each entry is started.

The target does not become optimal until after midnight local time. I have been using the classic scheduler and setting the first entry to start at a specific time and then using ASAP on each or the remaining entries. The result was the program is started at a designated time and the 2nd and following entries were automatically run. Classic appears to process entries in order and so automatically the 2nd and following entries in order. Greedy appears to scan the entire queue and optimize entries. This does not support the scheduling above.

Is there a way to create a similar chain with Greedy?

Thanks again,

Dan

Dan,

I believe there is a way to accomplish what you want to accomplish with the current (Greedy-only) system, but it would be setup differently.

What I understand is that you want to start imaging after midnight, and you want to re-align every 15 minutes.

Altitude Constraint
I assume the reason you want to start imaging after midnight is that the target is too low, or is behind obstructions.If that is the case, then you could give each of your jobs the proper altitude constraint, and the job won't start until the altitude constraint is met. So, for example, you could add this constraint to each of your jobs:



If, instead, the altitude constraint is more complex (e.g. dependent on Azimuth -- that is, there are trees in some directions but not others) then you could implement that with an Artificial Horizon constraint that we could discuss later if you don't understand how to set that up.

Alignment
Now, you also want to re-align every 15-20 minutes. I assume you either have some flexure issues you want to control, or very exacting imaging constraints.

There are a few approaches to that. The main one I'd recommend is to use the scheduler's "Verify Captured Position" options.



What it will do is plate solve every Nth capture and if it is not within ZZZ arc-minutes of your target position, then it initiates a realignment. For example, you could set this to 1 and 0.5 and every image will be checked to be within 30 arc-seconds. Then you'd just have have one job, and you could set it to be longer, or you could set it to repeat, etc. This way it would only re-align if it needed to (since it was checking the actual captured image).

An alternative approach (though I'd recommend the above) is this.

You could use the scheduler's "Force Realignment Before Restarting Jobs" (see 2nd-from-bottom checkbox below), and then set your job to be "Repeat for 15 times", and you'd actually only need one scheduler line. It would repeat the job 15 times and re-align after each one.





Does that work / make sense?
Hy

Thank you.

Smart approach!
Thanks for the tip.

I also always made repeats for 10 runs, but this suggestion is even better.

Hi Hy,
I don't have much experience with Scheduler but I just tried what you suggested.
Set a 5x360s sequence and set it to repeat for 10 times.
I was hoping it would re-focus and re-align every 5 frames but it didn't.
It would just go on without redoing things...
What could be wrong?
Thanks!

I hope you'll eventually find that the scheduler is the way to go when imaging, even when doing one job on one night.
We aim to make it more reliable than just using the component modules (e.g. it retries on component failures, etc).

Here's what's going on in your case.
The way repeat-N-times, or repeat-until-terminated jobs work is that, in general they don't repeat the startup tasks.
That's why it doesn't re-focus when it restarts the job. It just continues from where it is.
Of course, you can use the re-focus-every N minutes in the Capture limits section, if you make that part of your capture sequence.

BTW, there is one exception, there's a checkbox for "force re-alignment before restarting jobs" in the scheduler options page.
(I suppose there could be that for focus too, but currently there isn't).

Hy

Hy,
Thanks for replying.
Yes, I am aware of the re-focus-every N minutes in the Capture limits section.
With a scheduler or not, I would like to be able to re-focus and re-align every 30-60 min.
Is this at all possible right now? Automatically.
Right now, I do it manually every 30-60 min.

Thanks!

Well, If you have jobs that last about an hour, and have a repeat job setting in the scheduler, and check the scheduler option "Force re-alignment before re-starting jobs", then you should re-align every hour.

I'm not 100% sure if the capture-focus timer works across repeats or not (it may--I've asked Wolfgang who would be more familiar with it).

However, as I've mentioned, you can do all that as- or more effectively by using the scheduler's "Verify captured image position" settings. If you did that, then you could run a single joband and should get the focus (with capture limits) and alignment (with the scheduler verify) performance you're looking for, and not have to do it manually. That's what I do, and it seems to work on my system.

Please let me know if that's not clear,
Hy

I'll give this another try next time.
Thanks much!

I have verified on the simulator that the "re-focus every N minutes" does work across job repeats.
So, it seems to me that the simplest way to make Ekos keep alignment and refocus regularly for a job
is to run it in the scheduler using the "Verify captured image position" settings and use capture's sequence
job refocus-every-N-minutes limit setting.

Hy