;REMOVE THIS LINE ; ; ----------------------------------------- ; ACP Automatic Sky-Flat configuration file ; ----------------------------------------- ; ; USER SETUP (See ACP Help, Automatic Sky Flats) ; REMOVE THE FIRST LINE OF THIS FILE! ; ; --- AZIMUTH AND ALTITUDE COORDINATES --- ; ; Valid altitude and azimuth values must be in decimal. Altitude -90.0 to +90.0, ; Azimuth 0.0 to less than +360.0. Sexagesimal is not supported. Also, altitude ; must be ABOVE YOUR MOUNT'S LIMITS! So if you need -10 altitude for your panel, ; your mount's limit probably needs to be set below -10 not exactly -10. ; FlatMode Sky ; One of "Sky", "Panel", "Screen" ; ; This may be a comma delimited list, one value per filter in filter order, or a ; single value as shown for all filters. If it is a list, a value for every filter ; in the system must be included ; TargetBackgroundADU 20000 ; Target flatfield mean in ADU TargetADUTolerance 4000 ; Tolerance on the above MinExposure 1 ; Minimum exposure (as short as possible) MaxExposure 10 ; Maximum exposure (until you see too many stars) ; ; Post-flat slew for mirror protection. Uncomment PostFlatAlt to activate this ; feature, and set it to your desired post-flat slew altitude. Mind the horizon ; and safety limnits set in ACP and your mount! Uncomment PostFlatAz and set it ; to the desired post-flat slew azimuth. If left commented-out the post-flat ; slew will use the telescope azimuth at the end of flat acquisition, avoiding ; a flip if the mount is a GEM. ; ;PostFlatAlt 20 ; Post-flat altitude (must be above safety limits!) ;PostFlatAz 90 ; Post-flat azimuth ; ; ------------------------------ ; FILE AND FOLDER NAMING SECTION ; ------------------------------ ; ; Required folder name customization templates. If using the default ACP image file ; template ($DATENITE folders) this will create an AutoFlat subfolder in the same ; folder that the images themselves go in. ; ; FOR INFO ON THESE, SEE ACP HELP, CUSTOMIZING ACP, ; CUSTOMIZING FILE AND FOLDER NAMES. SCROLL DOWN TO ; THE AUTOFLAT CONFIG SECTION. ; FolderTemplate $DEFPATH\$DATENITE\AutoFlat FileTemplate AutoFlat-PA$FLATPA-$FLATFILT-Bin$FLATBIN-$FLATSEQ-$MERSIDE ; ; Optional autoflat log folder. Default is to put the autoflat logs into the ; user's normal log folders (local user or web). Uncomment to activate this ; feature (remove the leading ';') ; ;LogFolder [any valid folder path, folder(s) will be created] ; ; ----------------- ; SKY FLATS SECTION (used only when flats are done on the sky) ; ----------------- ; ; Factors to improve exposure scaling process. The scaling process ; assumes no additional time for downloads. For cameras with relatively ; long download times (~20+ seconds), that assumption may not be accurate ; enough to keep the ADU levels within TargetADUTolerance. The scaling ; factor will be less than 1.0 in the morning and greater than 1.0 in ; the evening. STARTING POINTS are 0.95 and 1.05 respectively. The values ; 1 and 1 are here for differences in decimal point '.' versus ',' and ; so you NEED TO EDIT THESE! ; ADUAcceleration_AM 1 ; Factors to improve exposure scaling accuracy ADUAcceleration_PM 1 ; ; Start/End sun angles (deg.). These are set purposely too wide, ; adjust after you get some experience. Look at your flat logs. ; TwilightSunLo -9 ; Low elevation of Sun for flats (morning) TwilightSunHi +2 ; Hi elevation of Sun for flats (evening) ; ; ---------------------------- ; FLAT PANEL OR SCREEN SECTION (used only when flats use EL panel or lighted screen) ; ---------------------------- ; ; These coordinates are used to point the telescope at the flat panel/screen ; Comment these out if you don't want the scope moved here. ; ; ** WARNING ** PANEL FLATS ARE ACQUIRED WITH THE DOME/ROOF CLOSED. WHILE ; IT WILL NOT BE CLOSED UNTIL AFTER THE SCOPE IS MOVED ; HERE, IT STILL PRESENTS A COLLISION HAZARD FOR LOW-HANGING ; ROOFS. ; DoFlatAlt 30 ; Altitude of flat panel/screen DoFlatAz 120 ; Azimuth of flat panel/screen ; ; Optional dome azimuth, needed if the panel is mounted on the rotating ; part of the dome. It may differ from the telescope azimuth (DoFlatAz ; above). Uncomment to activate this feature (remove the leading ';') ; ;DomeAz 180 ; Azimuth of dome ; ; These are the EL panel brightness values for each filter. They must be ; in the same order as your filters (as listed in MaxIm DL). Adjust these ; on the high side so that the resulting flat exposures fall towards the ; short end of the exposure range (to minimize the time needed to acquire ; flats!). This also minimizes the effects of ambient light leakage. The ; permissible values range from 0 to 255. Start with 192. ; ; DO NOT COMMENT THESE 4 LISTS OUT. If you don't need brightness, just leave ; them alone and just don't put the #BRT# into the command line (see below). ; PerFilterBrightness 192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192 ; ; Starting with ACP 8.1 you can specify separate panel brightness values ; for higher binning, accounting for the higher sensitivity at those ; binning levels. ; PerFilterBrightnessBin2 192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192 PerFilterBrightnessBin3 192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192 PerFilterBrightnessBin4 192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192 ; ; Wait this long after turning on the light ; LightOnDelay 60 ; Time needed (sec) for brightness to stabilize ; ; THE NEXT ONLY IF USING COMMAND LINE PANEL CONTROL - IF ASCOM THESE ARE IGNORED ; ; These are the command lines for turning the flat light source on and off. ; If #BRT# appears in the command line, the brightness value for the current ; filter (from the above array) will be substituted. For FlipFlat and FlatMan ; see the provided documentation and include the 'S' option so the command ; window doesn't hang there for several seconds. This is really simple and ; only needs to be done once. The most common error is getting the COM port ; wrong. The commands below are for the Alnitak/Optec FlipFlat and include ; options for opening and closing the lighted cover plate. For the FlatMan ; anf FlatMan XL, remove the 'C' and 'O' options. For other light sources ; these commands may be used to control an programmable power outlet, etc. ; LightCtrlProgram C:\Program Files (x86)\Alnitak Astrosystems\Alnitak Astrosystems Controller\AACmd.exe LightOnCommand 3 C L B#BRT# ; Command string to turn light on and set/change brightness LightOffCommand 3 O D ; Command string to turn light off ; ; Comment out the above and uncomment these if you want to ; do panel flats during simulation. This will cause the ; panel commands to appear in the run log. ; ;;LightCtrlProgram cmd.exe ;;LightOnCommand echo ON #BRT# ;;LightOffCommand echo OFF ;;LightOnDelay 10 ; ; -------------- ; ADVANCED USERS ; -------------- ; IRAF_FITS False ; True for IRAF compatible IMAGETYP ; ; This controls the size of the "test" image, used to determine when the ; brightness is within range. Normally the 64 x 64 size is OK, and limits ; the download time. However you can change this is desired. ; TestImageSize 128 ; 128 is the default size ; ; To prevent (faintly visible) stars from being in the same location from flat to ; flat, the scope is stopped for a few seconds between flats. Normally, 3 seconds ; is more than enough to separate the star locations in each flat. If you are ; forced to run with "disable overlapped slew and image download" due to camera ; limitations, you may want to try shortening this. Otherwise, the pause in ; tracking is overlapped with image download so it should have no impact on ; your cadence. ; StarDriftSeconds 3 ; Scope stops for this long between flats ; ; ; When set to True, this suppresses the splitting of rotated flats (with a ; rotator and apecified PA) between East and West. Set this to True if you ; want all of your flats to be taken for the "east" configuration. ; NoAutoFlipRotatorPA False ; False means normal behavior ; ; -- end --