VoyagerTelegramBot

by Liuyi Sun (AstroBin) and Kun Wang (AstroBin)

Last updates: 12/16/2021

We just released v0.1.1 for Windows users! 🎉 Download it here!

Introduction

VoyagerTelegramBot is a lightweight client of Voyager Application Server. Unlike the official Web Dashboard, VoyagerTelegramBot focuses on generating statistical charts and forwarding necessary messages to Telegram.

With VoyagerTelegramBot, you don't need to keep a dashboard open to monitor the imaging session for sub-images, system status, and critical warning and errors.

Features

• Configurable for types of images and messages
• Critical message forwarding

• Imaging session statistics per sequence

A Guide for Everyone

We have prepared an application for everyone using Microsoft Windows (64bit), please go to our release page to download it.

Before following this guide, please make sure the application server is enabled on your Voyager. (important)

1. Create a Telegram account; (check here)
2. Create a bot for the VoyagerTelegramBot; (check here, under Send Telegram part)

   KEEP YOUR BOT TOKEN SECURE !!!

3. Please make your bot an administrator of the group(after adding it to the group), so that it can pin message and update graph.
   1. Instructions for telegram desktop app:
      1. Goto your group chat in telegram, click '...'
      2. click 'view group info'
      3. click '...' of the group info pop-up
      4. click 'Manage Group'
      5. click 'Administrators'
      6. search for your bot, and add and save
   2. Instructions for telegram on iPhone (Android should have similar exp?)
      1. Goto your group chat in telegram, and tap the group name on the top
      2. Tap 'Edit' on top right
      3. Tap Administrators
      4. Tap 'Add Admin'
      5. Choose your bot
      6. save and exit
4. Download the latest version of VoyagerTelegramBot from release.
5. Double click the downloaded file, and follow the prompt.

If everything goes well, you should see the main window of VoyagerTelegramBot.

Full Installation Guide

If you are confident with your skill of playing with python, or you are using Mac OS / Linux, please follow this full installation guide.

To deploy / use the VoyagerTelegramBot on your system, there are some basic requirements:

For the computer running Voyager application

• Voyager itself has been installed and configured.
• All necessary drivers and software packages are installed and configured.
• The application server is enabled on your Voyager.

For the computer running VoyagerTelegramBot

• python 3.7 or higher environments
• Able to connect to your Voyager Application Server
• Can be and can be not the same computer running Voyager application.

Currently, we only provide a general installation steps which may require some geek skills.

1. Prepare your stuffs

   1. Install python 3.7 to 3.9 (Unfortunately 3.10 is not supported by numpy, one of our dependencies).

   2. Register for a Telegram account and install the app on your phone / tablet / computer if you haven't done this before.(check here);

   3. Create a new Telegram bot and chat with your Telegram account;

      We are trying to write a guide, but before it's done, a quick guide can be found here, under Send Telegram part.

      KEEP YOUR BOT TOKEN SECURE

   4. Please make your bot an administrator of the group(after adding it to the group), so that it can pin message and update graph.

      1. Instructions for telegram desktop app:
         1. Goto your group chat in telegram, click '...'
         2. click 'view group info'
         3. click '...' of the group info pop-up
         4. click 'Manage Group'
         5. click 'Administrators'
         6. search for your bot, and add and save
      2. Instructions for telegram on iPhone (Android should have similar exp?)
         1. Goto your group chat in telegram, and tap the group name on the top
         2. Tap 'Edit' on top right
         3. Tap Administrators
         4. Tap 'Add Admin'
         5. Choose your bot
         6. save and exit

2. Install package dependence for VoyagerTelegramBot;

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt

3. Duplicate config.yml.example and rename it to config.xml. For more information, please refer to Configurations session;

4. Launch the bot

   python bot.py

Configurations

The default and personalized configuration file () are both plain text, you can open and edit it with any text editor (notepad, sublimetext, notepad++, just named a few).

Details of each configuration items are explained below.

version: 0.5

Just the version number of our VoyagerTelegramBot, no need to touch it.

Sequence Statistics

sequence_stats_config:
  types: [ HFDPlot, ExposurePlot, GuidePlot ]
  hfd_plot_max_shots_count: -1
  guiding_error_plot:
    max_shots_count: -1
    unit: PIXEL
    scale: 1.21
  filter_styles:
    Ha:
      marker: +
      color: '#E53935'
    SII:
      marker: v
      color: '#B71C1C'
    OIII:
      marker: o
      color: '#3F51B5'
    L:
      marker: +
      color: '#9E9E9E'
    R:
      marker: +
      color: '#F44336'
    G:
      marker: +
      color: '#4CAF50'
    B:
      marker: +
      color: '#2196F3'

Current version supports 3 types of charts including

• HFDPlot contains HFD and StarIndex values
• ExposurePlot summarizes total exposure time per channel / filter
• GuidePlot plots all guiding errors as well as some basic statistics

Remove any of them if you don't want to receive the results.

The filter_styles defines the colors in chart for each type of filters, you could leave them as default.

Messages

text_message_config:
  send_image_msgs: 1  # Send jpeg images to chats
  allowed_log_types: [ WARNING, CRITICAL, TITLE, EMERGENCY ]

send_image_msgs: 1  # Send jpeg images to chats

If send_image_msgs is set to 0, previews of images will not be included in messages. But the charts will not be affected.

Software

voyager_setting:
  domain: <voyager_url>  # Domain or IP for remote Voyager Server
  port: <voyager_port>  # port of remote Voyager Server
  username: <user_name>
  password: <password>

Information of the Voyager application server

telegram_setting:
  bot_token: <telegram_token>
  chat_id: <chat_id>

bot_token can be found when creating new bot, and chat_id indicates where the messages will be sent to.

Miscellaneous

exposure_limit: 30

If the exposure time of an image is less than exposure_limit, the image and corresponding messages are ignored, we use it to eliminate images for focusing.

ignored_events: [ Polling, VikingManaged, RemoteActionResult, Signal, NewFITReady ]

Certain types of messages we received from Voyager application server are ignored.

timezone: America/Los_Angeles

timezone is defined with location of your telescope. Eligible values are available here.

should_dump_log: True

It's a setting for debug. If True, all messages received will be saved in a log file.

monitor_battery: False

If you are using our VoyagerTelegramBot on a laptop, and wish to monitoring if the AC is connected and the battery level. Set this opition to True. The battery info is acquired by psutil.

debugging: False
allow_auto_reconnect: True