User decision 2026-07-18: use the full 2,638-point balance on southern
imaging, then cancel the membership before the 12 Aug renewal (GBP 32).
CAMPAIGN.md holds the plan: policy facts that force the order (points are
non-refundable and unusable without an active subscription, per support
article 142963), a three-phase allocation shaped by the moon (dark-night
LRGB now and 3-10 Aug, narrowband through the bright 24 Jul - 2 Aug week),
a per-session ledger to reconcile against account/history.aspx, the 10 Aug
data-download-then-cancel endgame, and the rule that the cancellation POST
itself is never submitted without explicit user confirmation on the day.
plans/ngc6744-t59.txt is the first paid run (T59, L 15x300 Bin1 + RGB
7x300 Bin2, ~180 min imaging, ~240 pts), already uploaded to T59 and
verified byte-identical. PROJECT.md and TODO.md updated to make the drain
the active objective for any future session.
The UpdatePlan page embeds each telescope's dark-of-moon base rate in a
data-default-rate attribute; effective rate = base x (1 - plan
AccessDiscount from DataService.svc/GetMyAvailablePlans) x (1 - moon
discount from a server-side illumination table, not yet extracted). Records
the computed Plan-40 rates for all 25 listed scopes, the billing model
(points per imaging hour, billed per minute of exposure time, overhead
unbilled), the walk-in rule (idle scopes need no reservation; the ACP flow
is identical to the free scopes with points deducting), and the Cloudflare
constraint on the reservation planner.
plans/ngc6752.txt mirrors the 47 Tuc test recipe (L 4x120s, RGB 2x90s, Bin2,
~24 min all-in, inside the free daily 30 minutes) on NGC 6752 at RA 19.1811h
dec -59.9844: at RA ~19h it is well placed from mid-evening at Siding Spring
through the whole run window. Uploaded to T33's /plans/qisback/ and verified
byte-identical.
Scheduled for Sunday 2026-07-20 ~15:11 UK as an adaptive follow-up: if
Saturday's 47 Tuc first-light succeeded it images NGC 6752; if Saturday was
clouded out or the scope was contended, it retries the 47 Tuc test instead.
state/TODO.md records the dependency so whichever session fires can decide
from repo state alone.
plans/ngc104-test.txt is the ACP observing plan for the free 30-minute proof
run on T33: NGC 104 / 47 Tucanae, L 4x120s + RGB 2x90s at Bin2 (~17 min
exposure, ~24 min with overhead), modelled on the account's previous
one-click plan format (decimal-hours RA, decimal-degrees dec, #shutdown at
end). Already uploaded to the scope's /plans/qisback/ folder and verified to
round-trip byte-identical.
plans/README.md is the runbook: the T33 ACP endpoint map (status JSON,
console read, scope connect, plan upload/run, logs), the verified upload
procedure, the not-yet-exercised acquire POST with its Windows-path plan
value, the 47 Tuc run window (second half of the SSO night, ~14:00-19:30
UTC), and the step-by-step session procedure including the open questions a
first live run must answer (scope-connect requirement, abort control).
state/TODO.md tracks the test as in progress.
Records verified findings from a credentialed read-only recon of the
iTelescope portal (2026-07-18) in state/NOTES.md: the WebForms login flow,
the /DataService.svc JSON endpoints (GetAccountStatus, GetMyAvailablePlans,
ApplyPromoCode), the per-telescope ACP web servers behind HTTP auth
(tNN.itelescope.online / tNN.itelescope.net:80NN, confirmed on T33), the
Planner redirect to lookup.itelescope.online, and the per-site weather URLs.
Credentials themselves stay outside the repo.
state/TODO.md gains the next automation steps (map ACP endpoints, explore
the new planner, enumerate more DataService methods) and a campaign-impact
note: most Chile scopes plus several others are currently offline, including
recommended T71 and T73, so near-term work should target T33/T8/T32/T59 at
Siding Spring and status must be re-checked before any booking.
The user holds 2,638 iTelescope points. Adds a budgeting section built on the
published standard-plan rate shape (affordable scopes ~$19-54/hr, premium
~$54-118/hr, ranges reflecting moon-phase and plan discounts; exact per-scope
rates live in the login portal planner). Estimates points per finished target
(150-350 narrowband on fast scopes, 300-500 dark-of-moon LRGB galaxies,
200-350 for the T8 Magellanic shot), concluding ~2,600 points covers 8-12
showpiece targets. Stretch tactics: free full-moon weeks for clusters, the
daily free 30 minutes for framing tests, and booking narrowband at bright
moon when rates bottom out.
Adds TARGETS.md, a target guide for the southern iTelescope sites (Siding
Spring Q62, Deep Sky Chile X07) built around UK visibility: from lat 51.5°N
anything below dec -38° never rises and dec -25° to -38° culminates under
~15° altitude. Targets are tiered accordingly (never visible vs hopeless),
grouped by region (Magellanic Clouds, Carina/Crux, Centaurus, Ara/Scorpius
tail, far-southern galaxies, SNR/planetaries), and each is matched to the
best scope from TELESCOPES.md with the field-of-view reasoning in the notes.
Includes a seasonal booking calendar (evening sky by quarter from the
southern sites, with the Q62 30-35° minimum-elevation caveat), a suggested
first campaign for July-August (free T33 globulars, T71 narrowband on Ara/
Scorpius, T73 on NGC 6744, then T8 on the Magellanic Clouds in Oct-Nov),
and cost-shape notes (fast scopes for nebulae, dark-of-moon for LRGB).
README links the new guide; state/TODO.md records the addition.
Adds TELESCOPES.md, a per-observatory review of every telescope on the
iTelescope.net network with a spec block and an assessment for each, a
'choosing a telescope' use-case table, and general observations (CCD to CMOS
migration, Bin2 software limits, elevation limits, network-side calibration).
Data sourcing:
- data/itelescope-telescopes.csv is a verbatim CSV export of iTelescope's
maintained specs Google Sheet (24 rows: 23 active scopes + T74 placeholder).
- The support article (Freshdesk 247371) supplied observatory groupings and
minimum elevation limits; it still lists T9/T19/T31/T69 which the sheet has
dropped - the review follows the sheet and records the discrepancy.
- go.itelescope.net is an authenticated app shell; nothing was scraped from it.
Also fills in the remaining state/ files: TODO (pending: T74 specs, retired
scope reconciliation, periodic sheet refresh), DECISIONS (source-of-truth
choice, single-document structure, no launchpad scraping), NOTES (refresh
command, CSV quirks), ARCHITECTURE (repo layout), and README.
Repo created for a reference/review of the iTelescope.net remote telescope
network. This commit copies the Default Workflow in (CLAUDE.md and docs/ from
the Default-Workflow repo), adds a .gitignore (secrets and scratch), and fills
in state/PROJECT.md with the objective: review every telescope on the network
and provide a choosing guide, using only public sources (support article and
the maintained Google Sheet; the go.itelescope.net launchpad is login-only).
