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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Shutdown procedure and "Aborted Job Management" Gotcha

  • Posts: 12
  • Thank you received: 2
This morning I noticed an interesting behavior of the shutdown procedure. After a night of taking O-III and S-II frames, I was surprised to see that the sequence queue did not show the jobs as "completed", but as "Aborted" (O-III) and "Idle" (S-II). Yet, the images were there.



After going through the logs, I am beginning to understand what happened. After taking all 85 O-III frames and 80 out of 85 S-II frames, the scheduler reached astronomical twilight at 05:09 local time:
[2020-08-08T05:08:02.601 EDT INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.fits] - Loading FITS file  "/home/axel/astro/IC_1396/Light/SII/IC_1396_Light_SII_120_secs_122.fits"
[2020-08-08T05:08:02.603 EDT INFO ][   org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Received image 80 out of 85."
[2020-08-08T05:08:02.685 EDT INFO ][   org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Capturing 120.000-second SII image..."
[2020-08-08T05:08:02.786 EDT INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - ZWO CCD ASI1600MM Pro :  "[INFO] Taking a 120 seconds frame... "
[2020-08-08T05:09:02.815 EDT INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Job 'IC 1396' is now approaching astronomical twilight rise limit at Sat Aug 8 05:09:00 2020 (0 minutes safety margin), marking idle."
[2020-08-08T05:09:02.824 EDT INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Job 'IC 1396' is stopping guiding..."
[2020-08-08T05:09:02.825 EDT INFO ][   org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Autoguiding stopped. Aborting..."
Thus, the job was aborted. However, in the scheduler, the "Aborted Job Management" was set to "Queue" with a 0 s delay:

Thus, the job was immediately restarted. At that time, apparently, the astronomical twilight limit was re-calculated. Since it was a new day (the original job started before midnight), and since the nights are getting longer, the new twilight was 05:12. Thus, the scheduler thought it had 3 minutes left before dawn and re-started the job. At 05:12, job execution was aborted again, and this time the mount was properly parked:
[2020-08-08T05:10:16.279 EDT INFO ][   org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Job requires 120.000-second OIII images, has 0/85 frames captured and will be processed."
[2020-08-08T05:10:16.284 EDT INFO ][   org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Capturing 120.000-second OIII image..."
[2020-08-08T05:10:16.535 EDT INFO ][           org.kde.kstars.indi] - ZWO CCD ASI1600MM Pro :  "[INFO] Taking a 120 seconds frame... "
[2020-08-08T05:10:40.969 EDT INFO ][     org.kde.kstars.ekos.guide] - "Lost track of the guide star. Searching for guide stars..."
[2020-08-08T05:10:45.132 EDT INFO ][     org.kde.kstars.ekos.guide] - "Autoguiding started."
[2020-08-08T05:12:01.677 EDT INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Job 'IC 1396' is now approaching astronomical twilight rise limit at Sat Aug 8 05:12:00 2020 (0 minutes safety margin), marking idle."
[2020-08-08T05:12:01.684 EDT INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Job 'IC 1396' is stopping guiding..."
[2020-08-08T05:12:03.678 EDT INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - Starting shutdown process...
[2020-08-08T05:12:03.678 EDT INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Warming up CCD..."
[2020-08-08T05:12:03.727 EDT INFO ][   org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Cooler is off"

Looking at all the scheduler's settings, I think there are two that could have prevented this sequence of events:
  1. Set the "Aborted Job Managment" delay to at least 5 minutes (must be larger than the daily change in astronomical twilight)
  2. A few minutes of Pre-dawn time in the scheduler options (it was set to zero). I also should have turned on "Remember Job Progress", so that the sequence would continue with the aborted S-II sequence, rather than re-start O-III:

Am I on the right track? Any thoughts?

Axel
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq
3 years 7 months ago #57941
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