Tell us what's not working, which telescopes need attention, and what features would improve StellarDock.
First light: help us tune the beta
Sign-in Issues
Having to go out to your email to get an authentication code each time is a real pain. Really like the iTelescope sign-in with the “Remember Me” box to allow direct sign-in. Why bother with passwords if you need to authenticate them each time.
Raw Data not available
It is nice to have the calibration data used available to download. However, without having access to the raw data, this is of very limited use. Asking for the calibration data should automatically trigger a request for the raw data as well.
Delete data manually from My Data
Organisation Reminds me to not download again Saves you space! With the price of storage rn…
In Progress
Chrome Mobile on Galaxy S21 Ultra
… Does not allow me to save a new or edited plan. The save button is nowhere to be found. This requires me to go back to a desktop or laptop computer and use a full version of Chrome to save the plan or edited plan. Can please investigate why the SAVE button is not present? Perhaps it’s behind one of the panels when on the mobile browser?
Planned
Completion E-mails, Calibration Images
As a bit of a newbie, I was able to successfully run four projects. I was able to find my way around the new platform…by guess and by golly. Two things, which may have already been mentioned. First, there were reservation confirmation emails, but none when the job was completed. Secondly, I was expecting images already calibrated, but received uncalibrated images with darks and flats. I didn’t have any problem incorporating them into my workflow - but did I miss something in the set-up so that I didn’t get the finished product in the same way as iTelescope?
Planned
"Discover Targets" issues x3
(1) When a target is selected, the FOV overlay only shows the underlying atlas image when zoomed way out. As one zooms in from this, the image goes black, and stays that way on further zooming. This includes all the usable zoomed in levels. This happens with all telescopes, all atlases, and all targets. The FOV overlay stops growing at this maximum size: …however the FOV number beneath it continues to shrink as you continue to zoom with the mouse wheel (clearly T71 does not have a 0.03 degree FOV! The Aladin logo in the bottom corner suggests you’re running Aladin Lite - https://aladin.cds.unistra.fr/AladinLite/doc/ - but it’s not tapping that resource correctly. (2) https://app.stellardock.net/#/discover needs a “reset all filters” button on the “Deep Sky” tab. (3) The “Asteroids” and “Comets” tabs should behave the same way as the “Deep Sky” tab - i.e. they should list the objects currently visible, and not expect the user to come up with the name/number of a particular one. This is great:
Planned
Reservation Successfully Completed Email?
Hi, one thing I am missing dearly from the Stellardock platform is the session completed email. I don’t need the JPEG images like iTelescope’s platform sends, but I would greatly appreciate an email from the platform when the session is completed. That acts as 1) a reminder to pull the data files and 2) a confirmation that the session ran. Thank you for considering this request.
Planned
Reservation Release
Hi, my first reservation, which took up discovery points, didn’t run due to the dome being closed for weather. The points themselves were not released until the following morning, making the points unavailable to me for the rest of the night, and other telescopes at other locations. Can this be changed so that points are released back for the user to make use of as soon as a reservation is discovered to have not run due to any reason? Points should not be held preventing their use if other observing targets are available to the user in other locations with clear skies and available telescopes.
"Discovery" telescopes - not defined anywhere
There is no description/definition of “Discovery” Telescopes anywhere. They’re tagged as Discovery: But nowhere is that tag explained. After much searching, the closest I came to an explanation was when I eventually found a description/definition of “Discovery” Credits…you have to click a tiny “i” symbol in Account → Subscription → Balance: This is going to be really hard for new users to find, or understand. Even existing iTelescope users have not seen this “Discovery” terminology before.
Session times out too fast - while waiting for MFA code
The session times out too quickly after the MFA verification code is emailed. 2 out of 3 times, the code didn't reach my mailbox quickly enough (it took 2-3 minutes), and I got “session expired” when I tried to paste in the code. (This delay does not occur with other systems that email a verification code to me). After I got in, I enabled the options to use an authenticator app (LastPass) instead, and a passkey. Those react almost immediately (the passkey is instant; the password + authenticator app combo takes half a minute, with the delay being due to the password checking). But it’s that initial email-based authentication that everyone has to go through, at least once, that has a timing issue.
Importing plans
I’d like to see support for some kind of text based plan importing like iTelscope could do, importing from telescopius or other services.
Achieving Focus on T72
I have tried to acquire narrowband images with T72 with an almost full moon (about 100 degrees separation from the target) a couple times in the last days. Unfortunately focus failed on both occasions. I know from using T72 on the original platform that the system uses luminance which can be a bit tricky. On at least one other scope I have used (SSO?) I noticed that the software switched to using a red filter for focus if it fails a number of times with Lum. If this is not implemented on T72 would you consider this a potential improvement? As you know narrowband imaging can be successful even with a near full moon if there is acceptable angular separation. Just a thought!
Calibration
I have used T20 and T74 both of which are colour cameras. With T74 the calibration files are 3-channel which I expected, but with T20 they are single channel. I have been able to achieve reasonable results with T20 using Cosmetic Correction to get rid of hot pixels, but why not provide 3-channel Calibration files like you have with T74. The sing channel bias master for T20 is seriously over-exposed which is really strange as it should be readout noise.
Plan: Image Repeats
When you create plan with multiple filters it is not clear if repeats are performed together at the same time or as a group of repeats. In this respect the new interface is inferior to iTelescope with an image set then number of image set repeats. The rest of the interface is great. Need clear sky to test the operational side