Imaging algorithms?

There are a multitude of factors to consider with regards to the piers and the prioritisation.

As Steve regularly says, when users submit submissions ideally they should be items due to start rising soon, and some items from different parts of the sky to take into account different blocks of time throughout the night. Such as dusk/dawn

The algorithms in place determine which items have more chance to grab the required data whilst taking into account any moon avoidance/moon down parameters and other filter priorities.

This can lead to newer items being finished first due to the system giving them priority as it may calculate that the item would be difficult to image further down the line.

We have seen and proven that the system yields an enormous amount of data when utilised properly.

The piers will never do jobs in the numerical order that they are input. It will always strive to get the most productivity it can each night and that means the data collected will be spread across multiple jobs. Before you know it, you have 5-7 completed jobs out of nowhere.

Steve or Pete can elaborate if I have missed anything.

Thank you for the clarification Phil

I'm just curious as to what the criteria is for prioritising imaging sessions, specifically for P14? There are a couple of jobs on there that are high in the sky that have been there for 3 months and aren't complete, yet a job went up yesterday and has been completed last night. Do RGB get prioritised when there's little/no moon over narrowband?

Afternoon Phil :)

Its a three factor algorithm that our system uses in order to decide what imaging filter and object to image on any given night

1. Minimum horizon limits - which on pier-14 are 25º
2. Moon avoidance - the less susceptible a particular filter is to the moon the closer it can image to it in all the moon phases
3. Filter priorities - Ha being the lowest priority etc as that filter can be used almost every night if need be, see priority list below

Pier Prioritisation by filter:

0 = Ha
1 = S2 N2
2 = Red & Green 

3 = Blue & O3 Hb
 He2
4 = Luminance 

5 = Moon down job requests
6 = Comet

So to answer your question, yes it does mean when the moon is down lum and RGB will 100% take priority over narrowband filters, it also means that blue, O3 and Hb have a higher priority due to the shorter wave lengths and the light scatter they suffer from :)

HTH

Steve

Edited 18.20pm

I thought it would be prudent to add, you can see moon down takes a very high priority, this is because moon down has very limited time to gather the data, it does not mean all jobs should be put as moon down and should be used Judiciously at all times :)

Awesome thanks Steve!