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How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

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Replied by Fitchie on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

That makes sense!

I dump the captured FITS files on Dropbox, that's easy because then I also have the files at my workplace a few seconds later. Since the Eagle where Kstars/EKOS is running only has limited disk space, I move files manually from Dropbax to NAS at random times. So that might explain the weird numbers.

User-induced error. :S

I just started a new sequence and won't move any file during this session and then I'll know tomorrow morning if it worked.

According to the log, this should be the case:

Last edit: 8 months 6 days ago by Fitchie.
8 months 6 days ago #95140
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Replied by Fitchie on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

I still don't quite understand what is going wrong and why.

To clarify: I'm using Dropbox to save my shots, so that I can almost simultaneously view the pictures on another PC indoors and make an initial integration or mosaic stitch. It seems that when I open the files on another PC indoors -even without deleting them- Kstars still thinks that the files are no longer there.

But why extra lights are made in the middle of a sequence is still unclear to me.

Sequence last night:

8 months 2 days ago #95287
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Replied by Bart on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

Hey all,

I'm trying to get the same way a mosaic: 20x 3 min per panel and repeat this more often (4 panels, so after about 4 hours, the cycle should repeat).

I don't understand why 'remember job progress' needs to be unselected.

And what is the behaviour of the checkbox 'repeat all jobs X times'? Will it repeat each individual job X times first and then move on, or every job once, and then all twice, all trice, etc?

I'd love to be able to get a full mosaic within a night or two and increase SNR by imaging more (very rare here) clear nights.

Cheers and thanks a lot!
7 months 3 weeks ago #95476

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Replied by Hy Murveit on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

I've been successfully running a 4-panel mosaic the last several night, running it the way Bart wants (each panel running its capture sequence file once, then switching to the next panel).

The way I set it up is a follows:

1- Set each of the 4 mosaic tile scheduler jobs to have the same non-empty group name, and set each of them to have the "Repeat until terminated" completion condition. Of course, to set that you need to double click on a job (the + above the table turns into a checkbox), make sure those two items are set properly, then click the checkbox above the scheduler queue table. It's a good idea to then save that schedule to disk so you can re-load it the next time.

2- Checking "Remember Job Progress" in the scheduler options.

I restart the scheduler every (good) night with the same schedule and it progresses on all mosaic tiles.

If you're not familiar with it, "Remember Job Progress" (which only applies if you're saving images on the same computer as KStars runs on) causes the scheduler to look at the captures already captured. If all the captures have been completed, and the completion condition is "Sequence Completion" then the job is considered done and won't be repeated. If, however, your completion condition is "Repeat until terminated", then jobs will repeat after it completed the capture sequence. However, if you are using a "Group" then "Repeat until terminated" won't repeat this completed job until other jobs with the same group name have also achieved the same number of completed sequences. So, that's why I use "Repeat until terminated" along with a group name. You need "remember job progress" with this scheme, because otherwise the scheduler isn't keeping track of the number of sequence completed.

There is another approach to doing this which I don't have personal experience using. In that scheme you'd keep "Remember Job Progress" unchecked, You do check "Repeat all jobs" and use the "Sequence Completion" job completion condition. In this approach, you can only have the mosaic jobs in your scheduler queue (nothing else should be there or it would repeat along with all the mosaic tiles). The idea is that each job would run to completion, then the scheduler would just repeat all of its jobs. You can't have "Remember Job Progress" checked because if you did the jobs would be considered done and though the scheduler would restart, it would decide that all its jobs are done and wouldn't do anything. You can't have "Repeat until terminated" because the then the scheduler would never get beyond the first tile.

I recommend the first approach, as it's the one I have experience with, and IMHO would work better--"Remember job progress" will smooth out any stoppages -- e.g. if tile 1 got more done on the first night, then on the 2nd night the other tiles would catch up.

Here is the forum post when we introduced the grouping and repeat-all-jobs options:
indilib.org/forum/general/13520-schedule...obs/93797.html#93797

Hy

7 months 3 weeks ago #95486
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Replied by Bart on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

Hello Hy, thank you for your detailed explanation!

The way you have set it up is how I've been using it as well, 'remember job progress' and repeat until terminated checked for every job. My group name is simply '1', so should be sufficient.
Before, the behaviour is:
It finished 1 job for the night. Stop and start the scheduler, it advances to the next job.
Yesterday I've updated Stellarmate (stable release).
Same settings, 4 jobs of 20 x 280s lights: now it advances through the jobs.
Although somewhere along the line after one job there was a hickup in the scheduler (i think) where we see this behaviour:

After one job of 20 lights was finished,
It tried to focus and align at the same time and got stuck (near the cursor).
I intervened by stop and start the scheduler. The next job started, finished and after that one, the last job started without any hickup.
Could that have got to do with this?: there was a meridian flip right before the last light in the 'first' series. So: job 1 19 lights -> MF -> 1 light -> next job start [hickup] -> manual stop / start -> job 2 20 lights -> next job -> job 3 20 lights ... etc.
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Bart.
7 months 3 weeks ago #95500
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Replied by Hy Murveit on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

Please send a full verbose log, if you have one, re the align and focus running at the same time. Or, send one the next time you see it.
Hy
7 months 3 weeks ago #95514

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Replied by Bart on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

There was no logging active during that run, however tonight it's active: verbose, file etc.
The rest of the jobs ran smoothly, by the eay, so I suspect the hiccup from before was an edge case.
We'll see soon :)
For the rest I'm really pleased by how stable everything runs now, even on the Rpi4.
7 months 3 weeks ago #95521

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Replied by Bart on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

Tonight the hiccup happened again. I've enabled logging as you requested (verbose and all).

Each job has a sequence with 20 lights.
Starting conditions of the mosaic panels 1 to 4: 40, 24, 20, 20 lights respectively.
Result: 40, 41, 20, 20 lights.
What is strange: 41 lights in the second panel (starting at 24) not 40, not 44 (24+20)...

Please help me out, this is frustrating to say the least. (us Dutch people don't have the luxury of many clear nights ;) ).

Picture of the analysis tab:


Log, excerpt from the last actual light recieved (23:17:32) onward:
(I've put it in spoiler 'brackets' because then this post remains somewhat readable)
Warning: Spoiler!
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Bart.
7 months 3 weeks ago #95538
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Replied by Bart on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

And for good measure the content of the scheduler (.esl) file:

Warning: Spoiler!
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Bart.
7 months 3 weeks ago #95539

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Replied by Fitchie on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

@Bart,

Did you open/move/edit one or more FITS files during the running sequence ?

I've been struggling with the same problems as you since posting this topic some weeks ago and I'm starting to suspect that as soon as the timestamp or other file properties of the FITS file changes, the process starts acting weird.

Unfortunately we haven't had a clear night here yet to try again.
7 months 3 weeks ago #95544

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Replied by Bart on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

I first imaged M31 for a few lights, just for the heck of it (and waiting for full darkness).
Then opened the schedule, ran that, checking if focus, align and guidibg went well. It did, so I went home and left it running.
Didn't explicitly open one of the fits.
Last edit: 7 months 3 weeks ago by Bart.
7 months 3 weeks ago #95547

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Replied by Fitchie on topic How to repeat jobs created by mosaic planner ?

Please can anyone from the developers indicate whether opening FITS files has an impact on the numbering or more specifically on the strange numbers when creating a mosaic?
7 months 3 weeks ago #95572

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