KStars Changelog

What's new in KStars 3.6.8

Dec 3, 2023

Aberration Inspector:
John Evans introduces the very exciting Aberration Inspector tool. The Aberration Inspector is a tool that makes use of Autofocus to analyze backfocus and sensor tilt in the connected optical train. It solves up to 9 virtual tiles on the sensor as defined by the existing Mosaic Mask.
The information is then used to analyze:
Back focus.
Sensor Tilt.
There are 4 sections:
V-curve for the each tile.
Table of data detailing the curve fitting results.
Analysis of back focus and tilt.
3D Surface graphic to explain the Petzval Surface intersection with the sensor.
This release provides display only functionality. In future it would be possible to add functionality to offer recommendations for adjustments using Octopi, PhotonCage, etc.
Sub-exposure Calculator:
Joseph McGee continues to add improvements and fixes for the Sub-exposure calculator. For usability, the window is now re-sizeable, an issue with the display of tool tips was corrected, and an indicator has been added for the sensor type of the selected camera (Mono / Color). For functionality: the upper limit of the Noise Increase input parameter was increased, support was added for cameras with non-variable read noise, (cameras with CCD sensors).
Several new camera data files were added to the KStars source code repository, and a function to allow direct direct download of camera files from the repository was enabled. (Note: users who have created their own camera data files, may wish set the file attribute to read-only, and/or make a back up copy in case of an accidental over-write from the download function if the camera file has the same name).
A new experimental graphical tool to determine an appropriate number of sub-exposures for integration was added. This tool allows the selection of an exposure time to noise ratio for a stacked image; the tool will compute the number of sub-exposures required to achieve that value.
Added several new camera data files:
Atik-16200CCD_Mono.xml
FLI-16200CCD_Mono.xml
QHY_CCD_294M_Pro.xml
QHY_CCD_461_PH.xml
QHY_CCD_163C.xml
QHY_CCD_163M.xml
QHY_CCD_268C.xml
QHY_CCD_294M.xml
QHY_CCD_600_PH.xml
ZWO_CCD_ASI294MC
Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI294MM
Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI533MC
Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI2600MC
Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI6200MC
Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI533MC
Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI533MM
Pro.xml Nikon_DSLR_DSC_D5100_(PTP_mode).xml Nikon_DSLR_DSC_D700_(PTP_mode).xml
FITSViewer Solver:
Hy Murveit added a very useful feature to the FITS Viewer: a built-in solver!
The FITS Viewer Solver is used to plate-solve the image loaded in the FITS Viewer's tab. It only works with the internal StellarSolver. You get the RA and DEC coordinates for the center of the image, the image's scale, the angle of rotation, and the number of stars detected in the image. Its main use case is debugging plate-solving issues in Ekos, though the information displayed can be generally useful. The controls and displays are described below.
This adds a new tool inside the splitter on the FITS Viewer. It plate-solves the displayed image, and allows the user to experiment with a number of plate-solving parameters, and thus help debug plate-solving issues.
How to test it out?
Open the sliding panel on the left part way, click on Plate Solving, and resize the windows appropriately.
Experiment with the parameters available (Use Scale, Use Position, the scale and RA/DEC positions, choose a profile and/or edit it)
Click Solve, and the image is solved and the solution presented in the Scale and RA & DEC and Angle boxes.
If you enable "Mark Stars" above the image window, you will also see the stars that were detected.
Quality of Life improvements:
Make "Set Coordinates Manually" dialog more intuitive.
Telescope name specified in the optical trains are now saved in the FITS header (the mount name was saved before).
New placeholders for ISO, binning and pure exposure time added.
Add a new not-default scheduler option to disable greedy scheduling.
Reduce latency between captures, especially when guiding / dithering.
Fix issue with differential slewing.
Separate Business Logic from UI in Scheduler.
Fix bug in estimating job time, capture delays were misinterpreted.
Fixed guide start deviation was not saved properly in esq file.
Bugfix in one-pulse dither. Dither pulses were going the wrong way.
Fix Scheduler hangs when Focus does not signal Autofocus start failure.
Focus Guide Settle Bug.

New in KStars 3.6.5 (Jun 1, 2023)

Sky Map Rotation:
Akarsh Simha added a new feature to allow the user to rotate the sky map. It also allows some standard settings like inverted view. Here are some the highlights:
Rotate the sky-map freely: Shift + mouse drag on the sky map
Pick pre-defined orientations: Zenith Up / Zenith Down / North Up / North Down depending on the coordinate system being used
A magic mode for Dobsonians: The Erect Observer Correction feature, when selected along with Horizontal Coordinates / Zenith Down settings, will reproduce the orientation seen in the eyepiece of a Dobsonian. May need a one-time adjustment for your specific Dobsonian using the shift + drag feature.
Optimal Sub-Exposure Calculator:
Joseph McGee made his first contributor to KStars with the Optimal Sub-Exposure Calculator. This is the first iteration of the calculator and only a handful of camera profiles is supported. There are different points of view within the astrophtography community on how optimal sub-exposure should be calculated and whether we should consider other factors such as processing time given the volume of data produced. Your feedback would be appreciated on this first iteration of the calculator.
Implementation of an optimal sub-exposure calculator based upon the work of, and presentation by, Dr Robin Glover. The calculator considers multiple inputs to determine a sub-exposure time which will provide minimal overall noise in the image:
A sky quality measurement (SQM) for light pollution
The optic focal length
A filter bandwidth
Camera read-noise (based upon gain/iso)
An optional adjustment to the allowable increase in noise from light pollution
As inputs are adjusted the calculator will refresh graphic presentation of potential exposure times of the range of gains, and update calculated outputs. The output values are separated into two sections: one for the sub-exposure, and another for image stacks of various integration times.
The sub-exposure outputs are:
the optimal sub-exposure time
the count of electrons produced from light-pollution
the shot noise, (noise from light pollution)
the total exposure noise, (the combined noise from light-pollution and camera read-noise)
The image stack information is presented in a table showing:
planned integration hours
the count of exposures to reach the planned integration hours
the actual stack (integration time) in seconds
the noise for the stack
a ration of stack time to noise, (as a indicator of quality)
An instance of the sub-exposure calculator can be started from a new 'clock' icon on the ekos capture screen. Multiple instances of the sub-exposure calculator can be started concurrently so that side-by-side comparisons can be made for variations in inputs.
Data for camera read-noise will be provided through individual xml files which will be user maintained and published in a repository. These camera data files persisted within a folder "exposure_calculator" under user/local/share/kstars. The calculator includes the capability to download camera files from a repository. Upon the initial start of the calculator at least one camera data file download will be mandatory before the calculator can be instantiated.
The intent is that camera data file names will be used to allow the calculator to select an appropriate camera data file based upon the device id of the active camera. (But some of the initial camera files were named using educated guesses, and will likely need to be re-named).
Rotator Dialog Improvements:
Toni Schriber merged improvements and fixes for the Rotator Dialog. As shown in the illustrations the user interface is very simple and there is only one parameter to set: The Camera Position Angle. It is a very consistent term and easy to understand. The same Position Angle (PA) is also used in Alignment, Scheduler, and the Sky Map.
In the gauge this angle is presented in the same color as the FOV in the planetarium sky and in viewing direction. This way one can relate and understand this angle intuitively. The rotator angle is presented in gray and also in viewing direction. This angle is calculated from the Camera PA and the Cameras Offset Angle which is calibrated each time a [Capture & Solve] or a [Load & Slew] is brought into action. For further clarity the rotator angle and the camera offset is displayed again in a information window together with the current pier side.
The Rotator Settings can be accessed either in the Capture or Align modules.
Focus Linear 1 Pass Improvements:
John Evans continued his phenomenal improvements to Ekos Focus module with L1P Phase 2 changes as detailed in the Linear Focus Phase 2 document. Here are the highlights:
Optimized curve fitting . Should be faster and more accurate and includes outlier rejection.
Currently HFR is the only fitting "measure" available. The following have been added: a) HFR Adj (adjusted HFR to compensate for star brightness vs background variation) b) FWHM c) Number stars (max at focus rather than a min) d) Fourier Power (alternative focus method not requiring star detection)
Focus units can be displayed in pixels or arc-seconds.
Critical Focus Zone - a calculator with 3 different algorithms has been added
Focus Offset Utility to automatically build focus offsets.
Take flats at same focus point as lights has been fixed.
Focus Adviser. Still working on this but a tool to help with focus parameters (since there are now so many).
SEP parameters suggestions for focus. Keen to get some feedback on this.
Adaptive focus to adapt the focuser position between Autofocus runs, aiming to keep optimum focus for each sub-frame. Adaptations for Temperature and Altitude are supported.
Adaptive focuser start . The starting position for an AF run can be filter and Adaptive Focus adjusted.
Focus walks added to control how the inward sweep of the AF process performs.
AF Overscan originally implemented in the Linear algorithm and then reused by Linear 1 Pass now extended to all focuser movements.
In addition to HFR, you can now use different measurements (FHWM, # of Stars, Fourier Power) that may work well with your setup and environment. Here are some focus runs with each of the new measurements types. You will notice that the solutions are very close to each other.
Focus Aberration Inspector:
Wolfgang Reissenberger introduced the mosaic view well known from PixInsight's AberrationInspector script that builds a mosaic from all image corners and center tiles such that they can be compared directly.
Supernovae are back
The last few releases was missing supernovae data since the online source that was providing the data decided to go offline. Thankfully, Philipp Auersperg-Castell communicated with the fine folks over the Transient Name Server (IAU Supernovae Working Group) to obtain daily supernovae updates and imported them to KStars. All Recent supernovae should be available now in KStars.

New in KStars 3.6.1 (Oct 2, 2022)

New in KStars 3.6.0 (Jul 30, 2022)

New in KStars 3.5.9 (May 26, 2022)

DSS Offline HiPS:
HiPS (Hierarchical Progressive Surveys) is a technology that provides progressive high resolution images of the sky at different zoom levels. KStars fully supports online HiPS where data is downloaded from online servers and cached to display on the Sky Map.
One of the most popular catalogs in KStars is the DSS Colored progressive survey. With v3.5.9, you can now specify directory where the offline DSS catalog is located. You can download the data from various HiPS services online. For best experience, it's recommended to download 3rd, 4th, and 5th (Norder3, Norder4, and Norder5) order directories which would take around 1GB of storage space. You may download further orders (i.e. higher zoom levels) at the expense of more storage space.
The following shows a sample of downloaded order directories, at minimum you need Norder3 folder for this functionality to work.
Revamped Mosaic Planner:
New simplified and powerful Mosaic Planner directly integrated in the Sky Map. It greatly benefits from HiPS overlay to make your target framing spot on. Toggle the Mosaic View from the tool bar, and select your equipment and the mosaic configuration. You can also use it as a very simple tool to frame a single 1x1 tile.
Adjust the tile center either by manually specifying the J2000 center or by dragging the tiles across the sky map. Once done, you can command the mount to go to the target and solve. Alternatively, you can proceed to create jobs for the Ekos Scheduler. After the jobs are added, you may start the scheduler at any time to plan the mosaic session accordingly.
Refocus After Meridian Flip:
Dušan Poizl added the ability to refocus after a meridian flip is complete. This is very useful for some optical train setups where the focuser might shift duration the flip.
New Index Files:
Robert Lancaster added the new 5200 astrometry index files. The difference is just which star surveys were used to build which indexes. The 4200 Series was made from 2MASS and covers all the image scales. The 4100 series was made from Tycho2 but only covers wide image scales. The 5200 series was just recently added, was made by blending Tycho2 and Gaia, and complements the 4100 series to give it the smaller scales.
Internal Plumbing: Introducing Device Adapter
Wolfgang Reissenberger continues his outstanding work refactoring Ekos state machine by introducing the device adapter. Next step extracting state handling from Capture into a dedicated state machine. In this step devices are managed by a dedicated device adapter (successor of the command processor). With this refactoring it is no longer necessary to route device events from Capture through SequenceJob to the state machine, the device adapter sends the events directly to the state machine.
Capture Progress face lift:
Wolfgang Reissenberger streamlined the capture progress section of Capture:
Remaining time for frame and sequence displayed as hh:mm:ss
Display of average download time (in calculation, all download times are taken into account and not only those > 1)
New status widget with a color LED displaying the capture status (and no longer using the seconds text for this)
Using the same widget on the Master tab
Greedy Scheduler Speeds up:
Fans of Greedy Scheduler rejoice! Hy Murveit made significant speedups to the Greedy Scheduler, especially for very large scheduler.

New in KStars 3.5.5 (Sep 16, 2021)

Google Summer of Code 2021:
Let's start with the highly successful Google Summer of Code project: KStars Deep-Sky-Objects Overhaul by Valentin Boettcher. This is mostly backend plumping and refactoring to enable KStars to process very large DSO catalogs without impacting memory or processor utilization. This required the development of a new Python-based catalog generator that consolidates and de-duplicates deep sky catalogs in a form usable by KStars.
The legacy system for handling DSO catalogs in KStars has grown rather organically and was a tangle between databases, CSV files and special case implementations. Many catalogs were hard-coded explicitly, making it hard to extend and generalize. Also, the sources of the catalogs and methods how they were transformed into the KStars format were inhomogeneous and hard to reproduce, making deduplication almost impossible.
De-duplication is a process to identify when different designations are used to denote the same deep sky object. For example, the infamous Andromeda Galaxy is known as M31 in the Messier catalog, whereas in the NGC catalog, its designation is 224, and in the PGC catalog, it is 2557 and so forth. Previously, when each catalog was loaded separately in KStars, there was no way to know whether these designations were actually referring to the same physical object. This led to interesting side-effects as these designations were sometimes loaded as separate unique objects in KStars. This is where de-duplication comes into play, it prevents duplication of the same object even when it is exists in multiple catalogs with different designations.
Another limitation for KStars deep sky catalog management is memory handling. KStars just loaded all the DSOs into memory and computed their position on the virtual sky for every draw cycle, which made all too large catalogs infeasible. Valentin task was to implement a unified catalog format which can be loaded into a central database and supports de-duplication. Furthermore, taking inspiration from the handling of star catalogs in KStars, the objects should be trixel indexed and cached in and out of memory (but only for large catalogs). Finally, it would be very desirable to make the creation/compilation of the catalogs reproducible and easily extendable to facilitate future maintenance.
Valentine developed a new python framework to generate KStars catalogs from sources. To learn how to create new DSO catalogs for KStars, please checkout the documentation.
While the above method is the recommended method to create highly efficient catalogs, you can still import DSOs using a basic CSV importer. This might be helpful to add a few DSOs of interest to some users.
With the previous legacy catalogs, the DSO object colors were hard-coded in the catalog itself. Now you can customize the color of each catalog to get the best experience possible suited to your needs.
Port Selector Tool:
When creating a new Ekos Equipment profile, you will be presented with the Port Selector tool if any of your devices is a serial or networked device.
Your equipment profile may contain one or more serial and/or network-enabled devices. Although INDI performs an auto-search when you connect to your serial devices, it's recommended to select the appropriate ports and baud rates before connecting for the first time.
If a device is available on the network (WiFi or Ethernet), then you can configure the device host-name (or IP address) and port. It must be located on the same network where Ekos is running in order for them to communicate with each other. The port selector tool can be toggled at any time and not only during initial connection phase.
Re-usable Widgets:
Wolfgang Reissenberger implemented new reusable widgets to be used across Ekos. These widgets replace the legacy raster-based pixmaps that were used in the Summary screen to report progress in focus, capture, and guide modules. Not only this reduces the memory footprint of KStars, but it also present fully interactive widgets at native resolution.
You can switch back and forth between the available widgets to select the desired information to display.
Scheduler Artificial Horizon Restriction:
Hy Murveit implemented a feature that was requested by our users for years: Artificial-Horizon -aware-scheduler!
Users may define an artificial horizon zones where visibility is obstructed by natural or man-made structures. Furthermore, a terrain map can be superimposed to provide a 360 degree view of the horizon.
Artificial Horizon constraints, when enabled via the standard artificial horizon UI, will now be used by the scheduler to start or interrupt jobs. That is, if there is an artificial horizon constraint at a given azimuth, it will be used by the scheduler, along with the standard altitude constraint to determine if a job can start or continue. The scheduler uses the max of the altitude constraints as the constraint to enforce.
Ekos Internal Guider Improvements:
Hy Murveit overhauled the Guider UI starting with simplifying the Guider Options Menu (GOM):
Dither options used to be in GOM's Guider Tab. Now the GOM has a Dither tab for dither parameters.
Moved the control parameters (e.g. DEC proportional gain = 133) to the GOM's Guide tab (where dither parameters used to be).
Removed the Control sub-tab from the Guide page (the sub-tab next to "Drift Plot" and "Calibration Plot").
Removed UI controls related to image guiding and rapid guiding
Furthermore, The standard control algorithm now uses calibration information when computing pulses. The control gain parameter for RA and (a separate one for DEC) now go from 0 to 1.0. It multiplies the error and the calibrated arcsec_per_ms_pulse. (Similar adjustments were made to the optional integral_gain.)
proportionalResponse = arcsecDrift * proportionalGain * arcsecPerMsPulse
The Proportional Gain was renamed to the industry standard name of Aggressiveness. The guider's min-pulse and max-pulse (both in milliseconds) parameters were changed to Min Error and Max Response, both with units of arc-seconds instead of milliseconds of pulse. Hopefully more intuitive to users. The derivative gain control was dropped since it was never used in the code before.
Users are highly recommended to revise their internal guider settings to achieve the best results.
More Improvements & Fixes:
Add shortcuts for increasing and decreasing the time scale (by Nate Graham).
Control Mount with arrow keys (by Siyu Zhang)
Eliminating formerly required Python options for local astrometry.net on MacOS (By Robert Lancaster)
Stable alphabetical INDI device order (by Dušan Poizl)
Remove pre-calculated pixel-to-WCS lookup table which takes huge amounts of memory (two floats per pixel) and slows down image loading (by Jarno Paananen)
Broad Documentation updates with updated screenshots (by Antoni Bella Pérez)
Batch add option in the Observation Planner (by Akarsh Simha)
Better sectioning for translation (by Yuri Chornoivan)
Fix core computations in SkyPoint and StarObject, and a few other improvements (By Akarsh Simha)
Move focuser back to initial position when interrupted by a meridian flip (By Wolfgang Reissenberger)
Save Binning, Fits filter settings (guider), Camera gain (solver) and configure SEPMultistarOptions correctly (By Antonio Escriban)
Resize manager: change the size of the log view (By Jürgen Terpe)
Update skyculture sternenkarten simplifying some constellation lines adding new constellation lines for the southern hemisphere (By Edgar Scholz)

New in KStars 3.5.2 (Mar 1, 2021)

3.5.2 (Huygens):
ec39e58d5 2021-02-28 Jasem Mutlaq Fix return code error
fea80004a 2021-02-28 Jasem Mutlaq Improve solve failure alignment message
157c8cff0 2021-02-28 Jasem Mutlaq Mark stable release for 3.5.2
487ca62b2 2021-02-28 Eric Dejouhanet Fix fread return code check and non-init block use.
e6c2c9c4c 2021-02-27 Hy Murveit Save the estimated GPG period.
a2f6995f6 2021-02-28 Yuri Chornoivan Fix wrong usage of i18np()
d80cef232 2021-02-27 Eric Dejouhanet Fix Guider capture/reacquire timeout handling
3f0274dda 2021-02-27 Eric Dejouhanet Protect from focuser loss, ensure autofocus stop from button.
a09145800 2021-02-24 Aziz Bouland adds the ability to set the video buffer size and the max frames per second sent from ekos programtically
ab65d91b8 2021-02-24 Jasem Mutlaq INDI driver sync
739c70fb8 2021-02-23 Hy Murveit Save Align accuracy. Add focus position to Analyze focus info box.
8240afe3c 2021-02-22 Yuri Chornoivan Fix minor typo
4aaad41e8 2021-02-22 Jasem Mutlaq Fix build error
601788519 2021-02-21 Jasem Mutlaq Simplify PAA messages
65b0f85d5 2021-02-18 Jasem Mutlaq Add more information about mount coordinates conversions in log
9ecc46851 2021-02-18 Jasem Mutlaq Add ha to mount messages
c5a7b5be0 2021-02-18 Eric Dejouhanet Protect from focuser loss, ensure autofocus stop from button.
11e7f786c 2021-02-16 Jasem Mutlaq Send pixmap for low-res images
d61c55749 2021-02-16 Jasem Mutlaq No need to send temperature as state
224caa313 2021-02-16 Jasem Mutlaq Fix crash in serial port assistant device navigation
b26c18ea1 2021-02-11 Hy Murveit Add apt-add-ppa to README.md build instructions.
c97f2adb4 2021-02-09 Eric Dejouhanet Fix issues found by Coverity Scan (level medium)
578da02cb 2021-02-08 Jasem Mutlaq Disable placehold test on Windows until fixed later
8962f1cc6 2021-02-08 Eric Dejouhanet Fix issues found by Coverity Scan (level High).
e50708a71 2021-02-08 Jasem Mutlaq Only debayer images that originally have single channel in the fits header.
dec23434b 2021-02-08 Jasem Mutlaq Make sure we have single channel to read data min and max. For multichannel we calculate directly.
b0268d421 2021-02-07 Jasem Mutlaq Add visual studio ignores
ea1cc1f96 2021-02-07 Jasem Mutlaq Disable strict iterators for Windows
1426c837f 2021-02-07 Jasem Mutlaq Make KStars compile on Windows in Debug mode. Apparently headers order is important
bfd04bf36 2021-01-27 Kwon-Young Choi Test SequenceJob::getSignature
b4e350952 2021-01-19 Kwon-Young Choi Empty TestPlaceholderPath class in preparation of issue #54
43c5c5dbe 2021-02-05 Jasem Mutlaq INDI Drivers sync
2d790408f 2021-02-05 l10n daemon script SVN_SILENT made messages (.desktop file) - always resolve ours
c10e174fe 2021-02-03 Hy Murveit PAA UI: Fix wording. Speedup drawing of circle.
1caa4dcce 2021-02-04 Yuri Chornoivan Fix minor typos
c5c04f2e9 2021-02-03 Hy Murveit New UI to help user correct polar alignment.
4c3a23ed3 2021-02-02 Jasem Mutlaq Simplify serial assistant
783a076fb 2021-02-02 Jasem Mutlaq Add weather interface as well since most are serial devices
e37423958 2021-02-01 Jasem Mutlaq No need to scale bounded rectangle
708d9be9d 2021-01-31 Eric Dejouhanet Fix sequence unexpectedly changing when pasting a Scheduler job.
dc14609eb 2021-01-26 Jasem Mutlaq Quick fix for meridian message box crash
2e32f9886 2021-01-26 Jasem Mutlaq Use KSMessageBox dialog to display meridian warning. Send az and alt error in the polarUpdated signal
86b990833 2021-01-25 Hy Murveit PAA fix issue with rotation, adjust test.
b1a4eba48 2021-01-25 l10n daemon script GIT_SILENT made messages (after extraction)
5b3eacbd9 2021-01-24 Jasem Mutlaq Send state when modules are started
df1571634 2021-01-24 Jasem Mutlaq Simplify PAH text
e0bd6d66c 2021-01-24 Akarsh Simha Update DSS URLs to https.
dcc946b43 2021-01-24 l10n daemon script GIT_SILENT made messages (after extraction)
9ab004338 2021-01-22 Hy Murveit PAA bugfix, make sure PAA is running before cancelling it on solver fail.
54c8299b8 2021-01-23 Jasem Mutlaq Fix build on BSD
cef2ab206 2021-01-23 Jasem Mutlaq Fix build on Windows
dc3e949a0 2021-01-23 Jasem Mutlaq Add adaptive sampling as a possible solution to load large images in memory constrained systems
fb74da14b 2021-01-22 Hy Murveit Fix PAA manual rotation message, Retry if solver fails, PAA UI cleanup.
7619cc39a 2021-01-21 Jasem Mutlaq Safe to add blocking connection back. No deadlock detected with tests
f89934aa3 2021-01-21 Jasem Mutlaq Emit change for vector correction
83b04aa39 2021-01-16 Rick Bassham feat: add rotation to scheduler
74e0dac19 2021-01-20 Hy Murveit Simplify AlignView for PAA and fix bug there.
ed097b432 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Remove older code now that we send updated frame
1941d7623 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Make the connection unique
81570e3a8 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Send correction vector on update
4f3be0fc6 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Fix mount speed settings in polar alignment
1c57e4518 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Ignore SIGPIPE again
1b3245b3c 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Safe to use blocking queued connection now
0975bdf7f 2021-01-20 Jasem Mutlaq Auto park on PAH completion should be off now by default
c02f114a5 2021-01-18 Jasem Mutlaq Fix Ekoslive PAH refresh
74c8d9d91 2021-01-18 Jasem Mutlaq Remove Pluto from planet search in observation wizard
17637042f 2021-01-17 Hy Murveit Analyze details table--move to QTableWidget.
2a6ed9959 2021-01-17 Jasem Mutlaq Remove extra functions for end focus as they were causing confusion. Focus tested under multiple real scenarios under Ikarus Observatory along with ..
6a797bfaf 2021-01-17 Jasem Mutlaq Create userdb database backup file and restore it once detecting a corrupted file for whatever reason
3656fed1d 2021-01-17 Jasem Mutlaq Delete client later to prevent crash under some scenarios
a65830501 2021-01-17 Jasem Mutlaq Abort focus if it is in progress while meridian flip is underway
2e3ca42ba 2021-01-17 Jasem Mutlaq WHen in meridian flip, ignore focus state changes
85c3b3196 2021-01-17 Jasem Mutlaq Must set this flag otherwise state is not dispatched in completeFocusProcedure
f53607cdc 2021-01-17 Eric Dejouhanet Fix Capture aborting exposure of Focus
8f55f85d2 2021-01-16 l10n daemon script GIT_SILENT made messages (after extraction)
8dcefc97b 2021-01-15 Jasem Mutlaq If ekos status is not idle, try to stop ekos first before starting again
b90f3ef33 2021-01-13 Jasem Mutlaq Set maximum temperature diff to 1 up from 0.1 as many cameras coolers are not usually accurate enough to 0.1. This would allow for first image to ki..
05510da0e 2021-01-15 Hy Murveit PAA--cleanup test. Update user messaging.
53f886c33 2021-01-15 Jasem Mutlaq Send ekoslive events even when not fully connected
e15ef966f 2021-01-15 Jasem Mutlaq Use KSNotification on device connection failure
f87c3ba28 2021-01-15 Jasem Mutlaq Use KSNotification::event instead of direct KNotification
26c615d94 2021-01-15 Jasem Mutlaq Use more sane defaults for INDI message notification and starting step size for most focusers
29cda560e 2021-01-13 Jasem Mutlaq Use Blocking Queued Connection again since deadlock issue temporarily fixed on INDI side
0fa393571 2021-01-13 Hy Murveit PAA: sample from the center of the image. Update test. minor bugfix.
b7ac3bd53 2021-01-11 Hy Murveit Fix PAA type (purple -> green).
cbe33115a 2020-12-20 Hy Murveit New polar-alignment scheme
4635b3b08 2021-01-10 Brodrick Bassham feat: manual rotation dialog in alignment module
c5e8b6234 2021-01-10 Jasem Mutlaq Starting 3.5.2 development cycle

New in KStars 3.5.0 (Nov 21, 2020)

New in KStars 3.4.3 (Jul 19, 2020)

New in KStars 3.4.2 (Apr 27, 2020)

New in KStars 3.4.1 (Feb 24, 2020)

New in KStars 3.3.2 (Jul 3, 2019)

New in KStars 3.2.3 (May 31, 2019)

New in KStars 3.2.2 (May 12, 2019)

New in KStars 3.1.1 (Apr 1, 2019)

Ekos Scheduler:
Eric Dejouhanet fixed a few bugs with the Ekos Scheduler along with making steady improvements to cover all corner cases for multi-object multi-night scheduling which can become quite complex.
Ring-Field Focusing:
Eric also added a new feature to the Focus module: Ring-field focusing. This method limits the area which stars are detected between an inner and an outer ring. This can be useful in images where
galaxies or nebulaes can be mistaken as stellar object which often lead to erroneous HFR reporting.
Meridian Flip:
Wolfgang Reissenberger migrated the Meridian Flip handling code to the Ekos Mount tab. This makes meridian flip possible even if there is no capture process going. If the mount is tracking and passes the meridian, it can be triggered to flip now in the Mount Module.
Ekos Documentation:
Yuri Chornoivan migrated online Ekos documentation to KStars official documentation. This was a tremendous effort due to the volume of the documentation data involved. Now Ekos documentation are properly managed by us in KDE and should get translations like the rest of the official documentation.
Ekos PAA for Non-GOTO mounts:
Sebastian Neubert introduced manual workflow for users who would like to use Ekos Polar Alignment Assistant Tool with manual non-GOTO mounts. Now the users are prompted to rotate the mount when it is required to do so until the process is complete. This is Sebastian's first code contribution to KStars, welcome to the team!
DSLR LiveView:
The LiveView window received a few enhancement to enable zooming and panning for supported DSLR cameras.
Other Fixes & Improvements:
The FITS Viewer window is now automatically raised to the foreground when a new image arrives.
Dark Library now considers all DSLRs to be shutterless.
Mounts are grouped by manufacturer in the Equipment Profile Editor.
Preliminary support for websocket to INDI::CCD on the client side.
DBus interface expansion to provide more fine control over KStars.
Fixed relative focuser bug in autofocus mode.
Improved multi-channel histogram by providing dedicated controls to each channel.
Fixed Auto-Stretch affecting raw image values.
Support for compressed FITS (*.fits.fz) in INDI. This can cut the transmission time to 30%!
Improved display of Parked status.
KStars defaults to limited resource mode on ARM architecture.
When there is binning change, always FORCE setting of frame values even if they did not change

New in KStars 2.9.8 (Aug 20, 2018)

New in KStars 2.9.4 (Apr 13, 2018)

Valentin Boettcher introduced a highly efficient binary interface for asteroids that would allow quite large (> 100MB) and distant catalogs to be loaded into KStars without a major impact on performance. Before this change, loading any JPL catalogs for faint asteroids (> 15 mag) resulted in significant slowdown of KStars during startup as well as during run-time. Now users can comfortably load fainter asteroids given they have enough system memory to handle it.
Automatic Flat field calculations were fixed for multi-channel DSLR frames along with an improved DSLR popup dialog. The online astrometry option with offline server bug was fixed and now users can connect to local instances of astrometry.net without any problems.
The Ekos scheduler workflow was revamped to evaluate all jobs every time a new job is invoked to ensure all scores are updated accordingly and not only on the first job run. More SEP work for star & galaxy detection is merged into the internal guide module resulting in a better object detection even in noisy environments.
Furthermore, the guide module is now a lot more tolerant to passing clouds. When a star lock is lost, it will attempt to reacquire the lost star for several iterations before giving up.
On the capture frontend, users can now instruct Ekos to take flat field frames exactly at the same focus position where light frames of the same filter were captured. For example, suppose you are taking an LRGB sequence, and the best autofocus position for Green filter is 37,000 ticks. By the time you finish the sequence the focus position would most likely have moved due to the Blue filter (unless they're perfectly parafocal). Once you start capturing flat fields afterwards, typically the focus position is kept as-is. However, now it is possible to synchronize the focus position when capturing flat fields as well. When a flat field Green capture is requested, Ekos shall instruct the focuser to move to 37,000 ticks as indicated by the last successful autofocus operation of the same filter.
Finally, users might have noticed especially on slower systems that opening large FITS files can take a while to load up. In v2.9.4, the FITS handling code was optimized with loading times improving on the order of 300%.
Turns out that statistics calculations were eating up significant amount of precious CPU cycles. Many of these calculations would greatly benefit from SIMD support like SSE/NEON but since KStars runs on multiple architectures, it requires an architecture-agnostic solution and major refactoring of the code base. Another solution that was more readily available is to employ multiple threads to by partitioning the image and therefore spreading the calculations. It is certainly a poor-man's SIMD in a way, but the results were immediately noticeable.
Using 16 threads, computing min and max values was reduced from 122ms to only 30ms. Running mean and standard deviation calculations took 118ms instead of 270ms. Here is an excerpt from the Qt Concurrent magic that made this signifantly easier to code than using plain pthreads.