Rotate and Flip VirtualSky Constellation

[CBaker007]

The virtualsky constellation overlay seems to always start with south up and west to the right. My camera is setup with North Up and West on the right. Additionally, polar north is slightly counterclockwise.

Is there a setting where I can change the orientation so North is Up and West is Left?
Is there a setting where I can perm. set (not using the mouse every time) the rotation of the constellation overlay?

Thanks,
Christopher Baker

[EricClaeys]

@CBaker007. Please look in the Wiki, Settings -> Website.

[CBaker007]

I have read that page and been over those settings at least 10x. I have played with most of them too. I don't see any option to flip (swap east and west), start with north up, nor start at a certain rotation of the VirtualSky. If there is something there, can you please point out the actual setting to try because I must really be missing it.

[CBaker007]

This picture is how the VirtualSky starts ... Red box show S up and my arrows show approx. N and polar N:

Even if I use the mouse and rotate it so the Polar N is about correct, now East and West are incorrect:

Additionally, the rotation does not save, it resets back to the wrong, S up.

[CBaker007]

I use the camera setting of "Flip" to swap "east" and "west" orientation of my sky cam image, so it aligns with my camera looking up from my obs facing north.

[EricClaeys]

@CBaker007 az changes the rotation of the overlay. I can understand why you didn't see that on the Wiki - the description of az was terrible. I changed it to:

Changes the rotation of the overlay. 0 is north up, 90 is north to the right, etc.

Would that have helped you find it? Comments on wording are appreciated.

Some people have to Flip their camera image, as you did. I'm not sure why that is.

[CBaker007]

Yes the wording helps a lot. Thank you. I will play with that. THANK YOU!

But the only way I can make this work appears to be changing my image to match the VirtualSky overlay. I will have to flip my actual image, possibly in both directions (horizontal and vertical) to make it work with VirtualSky overlay. Not sure if it is even possible, but in my opinion, the VirtualSky overlay should have a flip function equal to the image flip function (flip horizontal, vertical, or both). I would think the VirtualSky overlay should match the image, not force the image to match the overlay.

Thanks for your help!

[CBaker007]

Can I suggest adding another wording change or comments?

While you can change the setting to "allsky website config.js" from the allsky management portal, the "comment" at the top does a nice job pointing you to the website for more details. What was not clear and did take me a while to figure out, unlike the allsky camera settings that just require the allsky service be restarted, the website settings require you to reboot the entire raspberry pi for them to take affect. (Probably some option to restart the websever in SSH too, but at a basic level through the portal, reboot Pi.) Not sure if another comment could be added in the config.js or at least on the Wiki the existing comments points to, in order to let people know which files require what to rebooted or restarted for changed to take affect.

Other files:

1. I think the virtualsky.json file changes only require a browser refresh.
2. I believe the allsky "config.js" requires just the allsky service to be rebooted.
3. And the "camera settings" changes require the allsky service to be rebooted (can be done automatically if you check the box next to save).

Thanks again.

[CBaker007]

Just so you know, I don't think the "az" setting is working. Or I have some other setting that is preventing it from working. Here is my "az" setting in the allsky webserver config.js (and I rebooted my Pi after changing it):

And my resulting picture (which is the same with "az" set to 0, 30, 90, and 180 ... tried all of them, S always up):

For your information, my "camera settings" for flip is "both". And here is my allsky website "virtualsky.json":

[EricClaeys]

@CBaker007 I agree with your comment about the overlay should have a flip so it matches the image, not the other way around. All that code is in javascript, which I'm not very good at. Whenever I make changes there I spend countless hours debugging what I broke. If you know anyone good at javascript they can take a crack at it.

Wording changes are ALWAYS welcomed. I pretty much know how to do everything in Allsky, so wrote the Wiki for others, and want to make sure it's useful. Regarding your request, let me first answer your "az" question and explain what's happening, and then tell you what I'll do about your request.

Re: "az not working". You probably have to force the web browser to reload the config.js file. Reload the page with SHIFT-F5. I fixed this in the next version of the website since it bit me a gazillion times. This is not directly and Allsky bug, but Allsky can do something to get around it.
Every time you load the Allsky Website page in your browser (or SHIFT-F5 it), your browser reads the config.js and virtualsky.json files as well as the web files and the image.jpg file. It doesn't matter if Allsky itself is running on the Pi, or even if Allsky is installed (although the WebUI needs to be installed since it installs the web server on the Pi that handles requests). A lot of people have their Allsky Website on a remote server, separate from the Pi. The website re-loads the image.jpg file every 5 seconds, but does NOT reload the config.js file. It could, but that would be a lot of network traffic for something that hardly every happens.

When you edit config.js in the WebUI's Editor page, it simply updates the file - it doesn't restart anything. Again, you won't see any changes in the Allsky Website until you refresh your browser. Ditto for virtualsky.json. I don't know of any way of forcing a browser refresh from the server.
If, on the other hand, you update config.sh in the Editor page, it also simply updates the file and doesn't restart anything, BUT, most of the Allsky scripts read that file every time they run. So, for example, if you turn CROP on, then save config.sh, the next image will be cropped.

Given the above, what I'll do in the WebUI's Editor page is display a message after you update a file if you need to do anything. For example, for config.js and virtualsky.json the message will say something like "you must refresh your website browser window to see these changes." (comments on better wording are appreciated). No message will be displayed for config.sh or ftp-setting.sh since those changes take effect automatically.

Thoughts?

Eric

[CBaker007]

The Shift-F5 refresh worked for the "az" to take affect (unlike my rebooting PI and a simple page reload). I like your idea about the wording. Anything on the page or interface that says you need to refresh the browser would work. Maybe something like:

Might be too wordy, but I think the Shift-F5 inclusion is important...

"You must force the reload of the webpage cached by the browser to see these changes. For example, while viewing the page, press "Shift-F5" for the Windows Chrome browser."

Thanks for all your help and the great explanation. I might ask around to see if I can find a JS programmer. I know one, but not sure how busy he is. Appreciate everything you do for the project!

Thanks,
Christopher