Scheduler questions ...

[choward94002]

... note that even though I've set the exposure count and time in the "Edit Observation" dialog as 51x1, in the Imaging project dialog it's seeing this as 1 acceptable image with a total SNR of 0, completion 0% with a total time spent of 51min ... in the Observations section of the Imaging Project it reflects that as well, 51x1 exposures but no images ... is the program expecting some additional info?

I progress to the next day in the series, the 30th, but the schedule here doesn't recognize the exposures that I did on the 29th ... what should I do to cause it to recognize the previous observation period on the 29th and continue the series?

Also, let's assume that we figure out the progression and each day I do an additional 51x1 lights for another 17% ... that means that when we reach 100% we will have completed a total of 300min of exposures, or 5hr ... but that's much shorter than the Imaging Project dialog which tells me I have 22.1hr of exposures to do ... what could cause this?

Soldiering onward! 

I would need to see a screen capture of the Observation tab of the Imaging Project to be able to better comment, but I suspect that root issue remains the same: this target object is very difficult using the Clear filter under your observing conditions. It doesn't think you recorded any SNR at all in the previous image stack. Did you? Or is this all pretend? 

Right now it's a full moon at my imaging site, so I'm shut down until Oct 2nd ... I'm planning on tasking three of the C11's to do some experiments with the numbers I'm getting from ST4, that's why I'm doing as much planning and whiteboarding now so that when I get some sky time I can make the best of it ...

Without a screen capture I am having trouble following the rest, but regarding the second part, SNR does not stack linearly. You are not going to add 17% each night.  You are going to add less and less SNR each night.

Hmm ... OK, then what's the value of having 'multi-night" exposures and tracking at all?  Obviously it's to take advantage of stacking adding signal at a higher rate than noise is added (and if we can keep the noise as low as possible, by controlling things like the SQM we expose at and the seeing of that night we can optimize that process).  I'll provide additional screen captures but my question about why the Imaging Project didn't let me make forward progress on a particular session remains ...

Doing more research into what makes the filter "register" or not (to prevent my "setting myself up for failure"), it appears that Exposure Calculator is single-session oriented ... the numbers on the left let me answer the question "what is the most SNR I can get for the time I've given it", and the numbers on the right answer the question "what is the most SNR I can get for the entire session available" ... so, if my IQ A time is 30min and I'm interested in getting a single SNR 20 picture for that night it will tell me "X exp at Y sec" which gives me 5min total (leaving 25min left in the IQ A session).  If I want to see what I'd get for the whole 30 min IQ A period it will tell me "Z exp at A sec will give an SNR of 45" (using the entire 30min IQ A session ...

Further research into what makes the "Clear" filter in the Imaging Project give me some number other than 0 seconds (which you said indicates it's not possible) and extrapolating backward with the Exposure Calculator yields that an Exposure Calculator session (left side numbers) SNR of 4+ makes the Imaging Project (and thus the Scheduler) happy ... until I can get the multi-night progress working ST4 will happily schedule each night for whatever I need to get to the 4+ SNR and I'm happy gathering those up over time ...

It's also unclear what an "SNR 4" light will look like; there are about as many ways to calculate signal SNR as there are stars in the sky, all I can do is take some current objects I've got and compare them.  One of my experiments I'm planning once the skies darken will be to take a series of SNR 4 lights of a galaxy and of a planetary nebula, stack them up and compare them to images I've already made of those in the past (with, of course, the same SQM).  I'll then use PixInsight's ImageIntegration tool to get an SNR value for various regions of those objects ... that will answer (for me) if a bunch of SNR 4 lights really can give me a usable picture with a sufficiently large number of stacks as well as tell me what "SNR 4" for ST4 equates to with PixInsigt's tool.

Onward!