I have just committed a set of changes for the base telescope, and base dome classes. To make the dome anticipate a slew, we needed a new property in the base telescope, now called TARGET_EOD_COORD. The base telescope will set this at the start of any goto operation, and the dome will use it to anticipate slews.

Another useful artifact for this property will be for use by clients. I am specifically thinking of the case where folks are using separate programs for targetting and guiding, ie one planetarium to control where the telescope is pointed, and another program to guide once on target. A good example is using Cdc with PHD. The guiding program can now monitor the TARGET_EOD_COORD, and when it gets set by the driver, it can use that as a clue to know the telescope is moving, and guiding should be stopped. A really spiffy implementation can go a step further, and when current co-ordinates match the target, it could then automagically start guiding again.

I'm sure other folks will come up with creative ways to make use of this new property, but the real driver for adding it, was to allow for a dome to be more time efficient, and start slewing the same time the telescope starts. Not a huge deal for a setup where you slew to one target at the beginning of a session, then stay on that target for hours. But it will make a huge difference for time efficiency if you have an automated program running that slews from target to target thru the session, taking a single shot at each target, along the lines of a photometry or survey type of application.