@Rives,How about if the flip-flop does a cold flip? Power the ballast down, flip the lamp output relay, and power the ballast back up? It seems that this would be transparent to the ballast, and could easily be done with a micro-controller.
this is exactly what I do, the ballast power down one minute before the flip and then one minute after the flip they come back up.
@whazzup
In the instructions for the gavita PRO 1000w de it says that it can be used with switching gear, that it needs to be a 2 pole contactors.