Cen A (reservation 749302, T32) completed at 11:16 UTC, 34 minutes early
because the plan finished, not because of a fault: NGC5128 images are on
t32.itelescope.net:8032 and transaction 851344 billed 160 points. Balance
is now 2,097 of the original 2,638.
That second bill settles the billing question the 20 Jul note left open.
T32 billed 160 for a 120 min plan (2.00 h x 80) and T59 billed 381 for a
180 min plan (3.00 h x 127); both land exactly on the plan's exposure
total and neither lands on wall-clock time. So billing is per imaging
minute as originally documented, and the x1.6 wall-clock multiplier is
withdrawn from CAMPAIGN.md, TODO.md and NOTES.md. What is actually wrong
is the rate card's per-scope numbers, so each scope's rate now has to be
derived from its first real bill. The practical consequence is the
opposite of the old warning: the campaign is now heading to UNDER-spend
by roughly 800 points, so later planning sessions should add or lengthen
runs rather than trim them.
Queue #2 (Corona Australis on T8) is booked at last. The original
01:35-04:35 slot was confirmed dead by probing New.aspx, which answered
"Conflicting reservation. Start time must be later than 2:25 AM" (user
hajo's reservation 749207, exactly as the previous session predicted).
Rather than take the leftover 02:30-05:30, where the target sits 3.5 to
6.5 hours past the meridian, the run moved to the next night's evening,
2026-07-22 21:45 to 2026-07-23 00:45 SSO local, which brackets the ~22:30
culmination so all 115 minutes of imaging happen near the zenith. This is
the geometry of the previously rejected option (c) on the night of option
(b): (c) was only rejected because Cen A held the reservation quota, and
that expired when Cen A completed. Verified via Reservation/MySummary.aspx;
quota now 6:50 of 8:00.
The New.aspx probe is documented in plans/README.md as the way to test a
slot for conflicts, since the DayPilot grid renders client-side and shows
nothing to a plain HTTP fetch.
- Session ran early (08:48 UTC, before Cen A 749302's 08:50 UTC start), so this
round did only the time-sensitive, unblocked work.
- Free T33 47 Tuc retry booked and grid-verified as reservation 749314
(night of 21 Jul SSO, 00:05-00:50, runs 14:05 UTC). Third attempt: the two
prior free reservations expired unused, so if this one also fails to run the
issue is free-scope auto-start, not the booking.
- Cen A (749302) verify deferred: had not run yet; runs 08:50-11:50 UTC.
- cra-t8 (queue #2) deferred, blocked twice: quota held by Cen A until ~11:50
UTC, AND user hajo holds T8 00:25-02:25 SSO local that night (res 749207),
overlapping the planned 01:35-04:35 slot. Documented resolution options;
preferred is slipping cra-t8 one night to 2026-07-23T01:35 to dodge the
conflict and keep Corona Australis near culmination.
- Scheduled job ae3af497 (~12:13 UTC) will verify Cen A and book cra-t8 against
a live grid re-check.
- Reservation 749302 created and grid-verified: T32, night of 21 Jul SSO,
18:50-21:50 local (08:50-11:50 UTC 21 Jul), plan cena-t32.txt, est ~350 pts
at the corrected x1.6 rate with 25% moon discount (46% moon ~30 deg away).
- The original queue slot (00:35-03:35) was an astronomy error: T32 has a
35 degree elevation floor and Cen A culminates ~17:10 SSO local in late July,
sinking to ~11 degrees by midnight. Evening is the only viable window; noted
in the ledger so the mistake is not repeated.
- Reschedule flag confirmed to never stick (second booking posting
RescheduleCheckbox=on that renders as No in the grid): every reservation is
one-shot, verify the morning after.
- Quota math recorded: 5h20m of 8h held; queue #2 (cra-t8) plus the free T33
47 Tuc retry must wait for the Cen A run to release its 3h (~11:50 UTC
21 Jul). Full remaining queue at corrected rates ~2,530 vs 2,257 balance:
Phase 3 needs a ~270-point trim once real bills confirm the rate model.
- T59 NGC 6744 (reservation 749227) ran 00:05-03:30 SSO local 20 Jul and billed
381 points (txn 851148), not the ~240 estimated. Full LRGB dataset verified on
the scope server (L 15x300s BIN1, R/G/B 7x300s each BIN2); preview JPEGs
checked: round stars, clean galaxy, no weather damage, so no refund claim.
- Rate correction in state/NOTES.md: history 'Time Used' equals wall-clock
session time (3h24m32s), and the effective rate was ~112 pts/hr wall /
~127 pts/hr exposure vs the 80/hr the UpdatePlan rate card predicted. All
existing queue estimates flagged ~1.6x low until more bills confirm the model.
- Both free T33 reservations (749228 47 Tuc, 749229 NGC 6752) expired unused:
no images, no logs; grid shows reschedule=No despite the flag being set at
booking. First-light test is still outstanding; plans remain uploaded on T33.
- Ledger, booked-reservations table and queue updated: balance verified 2,257
via GetAccountStatus; queue #1 (Cen A T32) missed its 21 Jul slot and needs a
new night.
The eight ACP plans backing the drain-campaign booking queue: cena-t32
(Centaurus A LRGB), cra-t8 (Corona Australis dust), catspaw-t8 (NGC 6334
Ha, booked as 749230), smc47tuc-t8 (the SMC + 47 Tuc signature frame),
tarantula-t32 (NGC 2070 LRGB), ngc6188-haoiii-t59 and ngc6188-sii-t59
(bright-moon narrowband pair), scorpius-t70 (super-wide, pending the T70
server returning). All except scorpius-t70 are uploaded to their scopes
and verified byte-identical; keeping them in the repo lets any session
re-upload after scope-side maintenance wipes or for T71 substitution
re-cuts. Binning conventions: Bin1 L / Bin2 RGB on the CCD scopes (T8),
Bin2 throughout on T32 (camera is Bin2-only), Bin1 on modern CMOS (T70),
Bin1 narrowband on T59 with 600 s subs.
All seven remaining campaign sessions were attempted against
reservations.itelescope.net in one pass. The rolling reservation allowance
(8 hours outstanding on Plan-40) admitted only the Cat's Paw Ha session
(749230, T8, night of 26 Jul, verified via Edit.aspx?id= since the grid
cannot page that far forward); the other six returned 'quota.' and are
recorded as a ready-to-fire queue with exact New.aspx parameters. All plans
are uploaded and verified on T8/T32/T59; T70's plan could not be uploaded
(scope server unreachable, consistent with the Chile outage) and its entry
is blocked pending the server returning.
Substitution rules recorded: T71, if it returns, takes the widefield
sessions (better optics, lower rate); T70 books as-is if reachable; status
line checked before every booking round. Booking cadence: a daily job (or
manual 'process the booking queue') books queue items in order as completed
sessions release quota.
The Reservations Pilot app at reservations.itelescope.net is now mapped and
driven end to end: three-step WebForms flow (form GET, Refresh Plans
postback with plan+times selected which enables Confirm, then Confirm),
observatory-local times, 4-hour maximum, plan attachment causing iTelescope
to auto-start the run at reservation start, and the reschedule flag that
rebooks weather losses on the next free night. Crucial gotcha recorded: the
confirm modal returns OK even when nothing was created (first attempt
silently failed on the 4-hour rule), so verification against the grid is
mandatory.
Live reservations: 749227 (T59, NGC 6744, 00:05-03:45 SSO local 20 Jul),
749228 (T33, 47 Tuc test, 00:05-00:50 same night), 749229 (T33, NGC 6752,
00:05-00:50 following night). Ledger corrected: T59 moon discount is 0%
until 21 Jul (the earlier 25% figure came from a Utah scope's grid), so the
NGC 6744 estimate returns to ~240 pts. Monitoring crons replace the old
starter crons since the scheduler now fires the plans itself.
The booking grid (Reservation/Overview.aspx embeds the DayPilot events)
shows astrosharp holding T59 from 03:50 to 04:40 SSO local on 20 Jul, i.e.
17:50-19:40 UTC on 19 Jul, which collided with the original 15:33 UTC
walk-in start. The run is rescheduled to start ~14:15 UTC (parallel with
the free T33 test, different scope) so it completes by 17:45 UTC, with a
trim-or-skip rule if the start slips. The grid also confirms a 25% moon
discount in effect, so the cost estimate drops from ~240 to ~185 points;
ledger updated. Times in the embedded grid are per-observatory local time
(verified against Utah sunset and the first-quarter moon note).
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).
