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I was running a sequence the other night and intermittent clouds along with required guiding caused the sequence to go a long time without a focus. I was running a loop of 50 shots before I went into my focus routine. I kept losing guiding then getting it back so the 50 shot loop at 60 seconds each with a dither in-between went for two hours as the temperature dropped fast. I needed to focus but had no way to interject.

I discovered that I can put a focus routine in a separate scs file and then call it from the running sequence after each image is complete. To begin with, the focus scs file is empty. It has no code to execute, so when the sequencer loads it, it immediately returns back to the main sequence and continues with nothing being done. If I feel I need to focus I just copy over a "same named" scs file with the autofocus code in it. When the sequencer loads the file the next time around it will run the auto focus code. Then copy back a blank "same named" scs file and the focus code will no longer execute.

This also allows you to dynamically change your focus parameters as the sequence is running. Not only focus parameters, but any parameter that you might want to dynamically change after the sequence starts.

You can also maintain a regular focus routine in your run and add this code and use it only when needed. That is what I am doing. Solves my problem

Hi,

that's scary and brilliant at the same time... I thought quite hard about whether to make the sequencer a full programming language or not and decided against it on the ground of complexity, but people seem to always find a way.

I don't know whether I should suggest this or not, but you could probably have a python scripting based window pop up with two buttons to copy one file or the other on a button press.

cheers,

Robin