Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy Changelog

What's new in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 3.0.0.9001_2

Mar 19, 2024

Important Changes:
Rotation values in N.I.N.A. have been updated to use the counter-clockwise notation, aligning with the common "East of North of North Celestial Pole" standard used in most astronomical applications. Existing templates, targets, and other saved items from previous versions will be automatically migrated to reflect this change.
ZWO: Persistent device IDs (Aliases) are now supported for ZWO cameras and filter wheels. If one is already set in either of these devices and has not yet connected to it under NINA 3.0, the device will need to be selected again and connected in NINA's Camera or Filter Wheel equipment selection list. This change makes it easier to support setups where multiple ZWO cameras and filter wheels are present.
Device IDs are limited to 8 ASCII characters in length.
ZWO EFWs must have firmware version 3.0.9 or later to support storing persistent device IDs.
The command line options have been revisited. Previously /profileid <profile id> was available. This has been changed to --profileid <profile id>. See below for more details.
Flat Wizard logic has been revamped and can now also be used inside the sequencer. See below for more details.
The "Loop for time" condition and "Wait for time" instruction have been redesigned. When selecting dawn or dusk times, the rollover will now occur at sunrise or sunset, respectively. For example, when dusk is selected, the rollover will happen at dawn.
The native driver for Pegasus Ultimate Power Box v2 has been removed. The Pegasus Unity ASCOM driver supersedes this implementation and should be used instead.
The native driver for PrimaLuceLab EAGLE has been removed. The EAGLE ASCOM Switch Driver supersedes this implementation and should be used instead.
SGP Server API has been removed from the core application. Instead this is available as a plugin via "SGP Server Emulation"
Touptek, RisingCam, Altair, MallinCam, OgmaCam and OmegonCam now support HDR modes if available. The "High Conversion Gain" toggle has been removed and instead this is controlled via ReadoutModes!
DARKFLAT has been removed from the selection of image types. They really are just DARKs and are classified as such. Previous saved sequences and templates will be automatically migrated.
.NET 8:
The application has transitioned to .NET 8. This is not merely a version upgrade from the previously used .NET Framework 4.8. Instead, .NET 8 is rooted in .NET Core, representing a complete rewrite of the .NET Framework by Microsoft. This marks a significant technical advancement for N.I.N.A.
Plugins from previous versions are disabled. They must be patched by the plugin authors and targeted specifically for the new version to ensure compatibility with .NET 8.
Improvements:
The Profile Chooser will now be displayed before the application fully initializes
This change also fixes the issue that sequence templates are loaded from the first profile when switching it in the chooser instead of the one being chosen
The guider tab will now also show the dither pixels translated to the main camera based on the guider pixel scale reported by the connected guiding application
N.I.N.A. will attempt to synchronize the mount's clock with that of the computer's. Not all mount drivers support this feature. A warning will be displayed if the difference between the clocks is more than 10 seconds and the mount time cannot be set
ZWO: Native driver for ZWO EFWs now supports setting the Unidirectional option as well as initiate a calibration run.
ZWO: The native driver for ZWO cameras now supports managing the Mono Bin feature of models with color sensors.
QHY: Added support for 6x6 and 8x8 bin modes to the QHY native driver. This applies to camera models that support these modes.
GNSS devices: Support for retrieving site location information has been expanded to enable different types of sources:
NMEA serial GNSS devices
PegasusAstro Uranus Meteo
PrimaLuceLab Eagle's GPS and Eagle Manager X
In the Imaging Tab above the image preview, a new button to flip an image horizontally per click is added. Each following image will then also be flipped. This flip is for display only and doesn't affect the data.
Further parallelization of post image capture actions. This should especially speed up capturing using a dslr native driver where the time consuming raw conversion will no longer hold up the next exposure.
Added an option under Options > Equipment > Telescope to define the automatic sync direction for location. This can be used to supress a user prompt for automatic connection and control.
Plugin folder in %localappdata%NINAPlugins now contains a subfolder with the Major.Minor.Revision version of the application containing plugins for the current version. This will make it simpler to upgrade and downgrade application versions without having to exchange plugins for developers. From user perspective nothing will change as everything is automatically migrated.
Sequencer Sidebar Tab for Templates and Targets now indicate a load progress when the list is refreshed and should also load faster.
In Options you can now specify custom plugin repositories for privately hosted plugins
Autofocus report JSON files now append the profile id in their filename and get filtered in the application by only using the relevant files from the current profile
Mini sequencer will now auto scroll to active items
The SkyX Imagelink is now available as a plate solver
DC-3 Dreams PinPoint is now available as a plate solver
When switching profiles the "Switch Filter" instruction will rematch the filter selection based on the name or the index
In framing tab and Deep Sky Object Containers you can now paste in full text coordinates into the RA/Dec text fields and they will be parsed into the separate boxes - e.g. when pasting the following string into the textbox the coordinates will be fully populated: RA: 05h43m05s.90 DEC: +52°10'58".0
When sending location to the telescope the elevation is now handled separately and a different error message is shown
DitherAfterExposures will only trigger when the next item is an exposure item of type LIGHT
Added a new toggle in the framing assistant to control the automatic saving of images for the offline sky map. If you're using the complete offline map from the homepage, you can disable this setting to prevent changes to the cache.
Within the imaging tab, several panels now feature a settings button on the upper right corner. This button allows you to reveal or conceal adjustable settings for that particular panel.
In conjunction with this update, the HFR History panel has been modified. It will now use the aforementioned settings button, eliminating the previous feature where settings appeared upon mouse hover.
Every equipment panel now features an "Info only" switch, allowing users to opt for purely informational displays or to incorporate interactive controls.
Changed the default application theme to "Persian Faint"
Reverse autofocus direction when backlash compensation mode is set to "Overshoot" and a BacklashIN value is specified, to reduce the amount of required backlash compensation during autofocus
Native autofocus will now properly show star detection result in the image statistics panel
The native autofocus mechanism has been upgraded to simultaneously process images while shifting to new focus points, which enhances the speed of the entire autofocus operation.
Offset is now displayed next to Gain in the Image Statistics window
Adjusted color picker style to follow along the customized theme colors of the application
"Telescope" in equipment area has been renamed to "Mount". Furthermore the equipment options have been separated by telescope and mount. The renaming is an ongoing effort, so some labels might still refer to "telescope" instead of "mount"
When the offline sky map is selected, you can customize which Deep Sky Objects are displayed by disabling specific catalogues. To do this, find and adjust the settings in the 'Toggle Catalogue Display' menu located in the lower-left corner of the user interface.
Added Alt/Az input for manual coordinates in telescope tab
Previously, when users clicked 'X' to close the profile chooser window, the application would start with the selected profile. With this update, clicking 'X' on the profile chooser will now exit the application instead of launching it.
Commandline Options:
Multiple command line options have been added to be able to adjust some of the startup parameters for the application
p, --profileid Load profile for a given id at startup.
s, --sequencefile Load a sequence file at startup.
r, --runsequence (Default: false) Automatically start a sequence loaded with -s and switch to Imaging tab.
x, --exitaftersequence (Default: false) Automatically exit the application after the sequence has been finished.
d, --debug (Default: false) Activates Debug Mode in the application, revealing additional UI elements and features that are available only for development and testing purposes. This mode is intended to assist developers and testers in diagnosing issues, understanding application flow, and verifying UI elements that are not accessible in the standard operation mode.
help Display this help screen.
version Display version information
Flat Wizard Rework:
Flat Wizard screen:
The Binning and Gain settings have been relocated to align with other settings, and they can now be configured on a filter-specific basis.
Additionally it is now possible to specify a camera offset
A step size is no longer required. The algorithm will now initiate at (Min+Max/2) and continually halve to determine the optimal exposure time.
The option for dark frames is concealed when selecting sky flats; due to variable exposure times with sky flats, darks become redundant.
Internally the flat wizard will now use the new advanced sequencer instructions
The Flat Wizard will now save the exposure used to determine the exposure time, reducing the overall number of exposures taken by one and saving time
Trained Flat Exposure List:
The settings page to view and maintain the trained flat exposures for the flat device has been reworked
Trained exposures are now presented in a single unified grid, replacing the previous multiple grids.
The new layout aims to enhance user comprehension and simplify manual adjustments.
Settings from previous versions will be seamlessly migrated to this new format.
New Instructions for advanced sequencer:
Auto Exposure Flat: An instruction to find an exposure time for a static flat brightness
Auto Brightness Flat: An instruction to find a flat panel brightness for a static exposure time
Sky Flat: Similar to the Flat Wizard sky flat, this will take flat frames that have a constantly adjusted exposure time while progressing to compensate for illumination changes due to sun altitude.
Object Database Additions:
1538 LDN objects (Lynds' Catalogue of Dark Nebulae - Lynds 1962)
180 Barnard objects (The Barnard Catalogue of Dark Markings in the Sky - Barnard,1927)
66 StDr, StDrLu, StDrL, PaStDr, StDrLuLDu objects (25 confirmed planetary nebulae / 21 likely planetary nebulae / 20 possible planetary nebulae)
131 vdB objects (Catalogue of Reflection Nebulae - Van den Bergh, 1966)
235 Sharpless (Sh2) objects (Catalogue of HII Regions - Sharpless, 1959)
149 RCW objects (H-a emission regions in Southern Milky Way - Rodgers, Campbell, Whiteoak 1960)
100 HCG objects (Hickson's Compact groups of Galaxies - Hickson+ 1982-1994)
294 SNR objects (A Catalogue of Galactic Supernova Remnants - Green 2019)
66 objects PN candidates (Planetary nebulae candidates discovered by French amateurs - Ferrero+ 2015)
28 objects of uncertain nature like Ou 4 discovered by French amateurs - Ferrero+ 2015)
13 Asterisms like Little Orion, Napoleons Hat, Kemble 3 and others
File Formats:
FITS:
Implemented functionality to read compressed data into Framing Assistant and Camera Simulator
Introduced a new FITS keyword "CAMERAID" to uniquely identify the camera used.
For the majority of native drivers, this field will be populated with the camera's serial number, assuming it is accessible.
Added a toggle to use CFITSIO to write FITS files. This enables the following features:
Introduced checksum support for enhanced data integrity.
Expanded storage options to include compressed formats, utilizing RICE, GZIP1, GZIP2, PLIO, and HCOMPRESS algorithms. Notably, RICE offers an optimal balance of speed and compression efficiency
Enabled the storage of compressed FITS files with the ".fits.fz" extension for improved file identification
Added support for storing data in a 32-bit unsigned integer format
XISF:
Added support for storing data in a 32-bit unsigned integer format
FITS Header Cards are now correctly enclosed with single quotes
Alpaca:
ASCOM Alpaca discovery is now available in N.I.N.A. and discovered devices are selectable in the equipment choosers to connect to
Discovery settings can be adjusted in Options > Equipment > ASCOM Alpaca Discovery
Bugfixes:
Fixed SVBony Native driver that was sometimes showing the exposure before the latest one after a cancelled exposure
Fixed PlayerOne resolution not fully resetting to complete size after subframe or binning
Added automatic retry of exposure start when POA_ERROR_EXPOSING error happens
Selecting a date in sky atlas no longer sets the date one day earlier than selected
Radius will now always be calculated and displayed in the plate solver window
AF after Exposures will now properly consider previous autofocus runs and reset its counter accordingly
Dither after exposures will no longer fail to run when clearing the image statistics history
Sky Atlas date picker now correctly sets the selected date instead of the day before the selected one
For relative ASCOM focusers the MaxIncrement is now considered for move commands
SBIG native driver no longer stores (incorrect 0) Gain in image meta data
When an update notification in the app was available but after the initial pop-up a new version was published, it will no longer fail the checksum check
ASCOM Camera ImageArray can now properly transform Byte[,], Short[,], UShort[,] in addition to the existing Int[,] to the 16 bit data structure N.I.N.A. is using
Dragging an instruction below a sequence container when nothing else is below it will now work correctly
When switching profiles, the dock layout will be saved prior to switching

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 3.0.0.9001 (Mar 18, 2024)

Important Changes:
Rotation values in N.I.N.A. have been updated to use the counter-clockwise notation, aligning with the common "East of North of North Celestial Pole" standard used in most astronomical applications. Existing templates, targets, and other saved items from previous versions will be automatically migrated to reflect this change.
ZWO: Persistent device IDs (Aliases) are now supported for ZWO cameras and filter wheels. If one is already set in either of these devices and has not yet connected to it under NINA 3.0, the device will need to be selected again and connected in NINA's Camera or Filter Wheel equipment selection list. This change makes it easier to support setups where multiple ZWO cameras and filter wheels are present.
Device IDs are limited to 8 ASCII characters in length.
ZWO EFWs must have firmware version 3.0.9 or later to support storing persistent device IDs.
The command line options have been revisited. Previously /profileid <profile id> was available. This has been changed to --profileid <profile id>. See below for more details.
Flat Wizard logic has been revamped and can now also be used inside the sequencer. See below for more details.
The "Loop for time" condition and "Wait for time" instruction have been redesigned. When selecting dawn or dusk times, the rollover will now occur at sunrise or sunset, respectively. For example, when dusk is selected, the rollover will happen at dawn.
The native driver for Pegasus Ultimate Power Box v2 has been removed. The Pegasus Unity ASCOM driver supersedes this implemenatation and should be used instead.
The native driver for PrimaLuceLab EAGLE has been removed. The EAGLE ASCOM Switch Driver supersedes this implemenatation and should be used instead.
SGP Server API has been removed from the core application. Instead this is available as a plugin via "SGP Server Emulation"
Touptek, RisingCam, Altair, MallinCam, OgmaCam and OmegonCam now supports HDR modes if available. The "High Conversion Gain" toggle has been removed and instead this is controlled via ReadoutModes!
DARKFLAT has been removed from the selection of image types. They really are just DARKs and are classified as such. Previous saved sequences and templates will be automatically migrated.
.NET 8:
The application has transitioned to .NET 8. This is not merely a version upgrade from the previously used .NET Framework 4.8. Instead, .NET 8 is rooted in .NET Core, representing a complete rewrite of the .NET Framework by Microsoft. This marks a significant technical advancement for N.I.N.A.
Plugins from previous versions are disabled. They must be patched by the plugin authors and targeted specifically for the new version to ensure compatibility with .NET 8.
Improvements:
Profile Chooser on startup will now be shown before the whole application is initializing
This change also fixes the issue that sequence templates are loaded from the first profile when switching it in the chooser instead of the one being chosen
The guider tab will now also show the dither pixels translated to the main camera based on the guider pixel scale reported by the connected guiding application
N.I.N.A. will attempt to synchronize the mount's clock with that of the computer's. Not all mount drivers support this feature. A warning will be displayed if the difference between the clocks is more than 10 seconds and the mount time cannot be set
ZWO: Native driver for ZWO EFWs now supports setting the Unidirectional option as well as initiate a calibration run.
ZWO: The native driver for ZWO cameras now supports managing the Mono Bin feature of models with color sensors.
QHY: Added support for 6x6 and 8x8 bin modes to the QHY native driver. This applies to camera models that support these modes.
GNSS devices: Support for retrieving site location information has been expanded to enable different types of sources:
NMEA serial GNSS devices
PegasusAstro Uranus Meteo
PrimaLuceLab Eagle's GPS and Eagle Manager X
In the Imaging Tab above the image preview, a new button to flip an image horizontally per click is added. Each following image will then also be flipped. This flip is for display only and doesn't affect the data.
Further parallelization of post image capture actions. This should especially speed up capturing using a dslr native driver where the time consuming raw conversion will no longer hold up the next exposure.
Added an option to Options > Equipment > Telescope to define automatic sync direction of location. This can be used to supress a user prompt for automatic connection and control.
Plugin folder in %localappdata%NINAPlugins now contain a subfolder with the Major.Minor.Revision version of the application containing plugins for the current version. This will make it simpler to upgrade and downgrade application versions without having to exchange plugins for developers. From user perspective nothing will change as everything is automatically migrated.
Sequencer Sidebar Tab for Templates and Targets now indicate a load progress when the list is refreshed and should also load faster.
In Options you can now specify custom plugin repositories for privately hosted plugins
Autofocus report JSON files now append the profile id in their filename and get filtered in the application by only using the relevant files from the current profile
Mini sequencer will now auto scroll to active items
The SkyX Imagelink is now available as a plate solver
DC-3 Dreams PinPoint is now available as a plate solver
When switching profiles the "Switch Filter" instruction will rematch the filter selection based on the name or the index
In framing tab and Deep Sky Object Containers you can now paste in full text coordinates into the RA/Dec text fields and they will be parsed into the separate boxes - e.g. when pasting the following string into the textbox the coordinates will be fully populated: RA: 05h43m05s.90 DEC: +52°10′58″.0
When sending location to the telescope the elevation is now handled separately and a different error message is shown
DitherAfterExposures will only trigger when the next item is an exposure item of type LIGHT
Added a new toggle in the framing assistant to control the automatic saving of images for the offline sky map. If you're using the complete offline map from the homepage, you can disable this setting to prevent changes to the cache.
Within the imaging tab, several panels now feature a settings button on the upper right corner. This button allows you to reveal or conceal adjustable settings for that particular panel.
In conjunction with this update, the HFR History panel has been modified. It will now use the aforementioned settings button, eliminating the previous feature where settings appeared upon mouse hover.
Every equipment panel now features an "Info only" switch, allowing users to opt for purely informational displays or to incorporate interactive controls.
Changed the default application theme to "Persian Faint"
Reverse autofocus direction when backlash compensation mode is set to "Overshoot" and a BacklashIN value is specified, to reduce the amount of required backlash compensation during autofocus
Native autofocus will now properly show star detection result in the image statistics panel
The native autofocus mechanism has been upgraded to simultaneously process images while shifting to new focus points, which enhances the speed of the entire autofocus operation.
Offset is now displayed next to Gain in the Image Statistics window
Commandline Options:
Multiple command line options have been added to be able to adjust some of the startup parameters for the application
-p, --profileid Load profile for a given id at startup.
-s, --sequencefile Load a sequence file at startup.
-r, --runsequence (Default: false) Automatically start a sequence loaded with -s and switch to Imaging tab.
-x, --exitaftersequence (Default: false) Automatically exit the application after the sequence has been finished.
--help Display this help screen.
--version Display version information
Flat Wizard Rework:
Flat Wizard screen:
The Binning and Gain settings have been relocated to align with other settings, and they can now be configured on a filter-specific basis.
Additionally it is now also possible to specify a camera offset
A step size is no longer required. The algorithm will now initiate at (Min+Max/2) and continually halve to determine the optimal exposure time.
The option for dark frames is concealed when selecting sky flats; due to variable exposure times with sky flats, darks become redundant.
Internally the flat wizard will now use the new advanced sequencer instructions
The Flat Wizard will now save the exposure used to determine the exposure time, reducing the overall number of exposures taken by one and saving time
Trained Flat Exposure List:
The settings page to view and maintain the trained flat exposures for the flat device has been reworked
Trained exposures are now presented in a single unified grid, replacing the previous multiple grids.
The new layout aims to enhance user comprehension and simplify manual adjustments.
Settings from previous versions will be seamlessly migrated to this new format.
New Instructions for advanced sequencer:
Auto Exposure Flat: An instruction to find an exposure time for a static flat brightness
Auto Brightness Flat: An instruction to find a flat panel brightness for a static exposure time
Sky Flat: Similar to the Flat Wizard sky flat, this will take flat frames that have a constantly adjusted exposure time while progressing to compensate for illumination changes due to sun altitude.
File Formats:
FITS:
Implemented functionality to read compressed data into Framing Assistant and Camera Simulator
Added a toggle to use CFITSIO to write FITS files. This enables the following features:
Introduced checksum support for enhanced data integrity.
Expanded storage options to include compressed formats, utilizing RICE, GZIP1, GZIP2, PLIO, and HCOMPRESS algorithms. Notably, RICE offers an optimal balance of speed and compression efficiency
Enabled the storage of compressed FITS files with the ".fits.fz" extension for improved file identification
Added support for storing data in a 32-bit unsigned integer format
XISF:
Added support for storing data in a 32-bit unsigned integer format
Bugfixes:
Fixed SVBony Native driver, that was sometimes showing the exposure before the latest one after a cancelled exposure
Fixed PlayerOne resolution not fully resetting to complete size after subframe or binning
Added automatic retry of exposure start when POA_ERROR_EXPOSING error happens
Selecting a date in sky atlas no longer sets the date one day earlier than selected
Radius will now always be calculated and displayed in the plate solver window
AF after Exposures will now properly consider previous autofocus runs and reset its counter accordingly
Dither after exposures will no longer fail to run when clearing the image statistics history
Sky Atlas date picker now correctly sets the selected date instead of the day before the selected one
For relative ASCOM focusers the MaxIncrement is now considered for move commands
SBIG native driver no longer stores (incorrect 0) Gain in image meta data
When an update notification in the app was available but after the initial pop-up a new version was published, it will no longer fail the checksum check
ASCOM Camera ImageArray can now properly transform Byte[,], Short[,], UShort[,] in addition to the existing Int[,] to the 16 bit data structure N.I.N.A. is using
Dragging an instruction below a sequence container when nothing else is below it will now work correctly
When switching profiles, the dock layout will be saved piror to switching

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 3.0.0.2001 Beta (Dec 13, 2023)

Important Changes:
Rotation values in N.I.N.A. have been updated to use the counter-clockwise notation, aligning with the common "East of North of North Celestial Pole" standard used in most astronomical applications. Existing templates, targets, and other saved items from previous versions will be automatically migrated to reflect this change.
ZWO: Persistent device IDs (Aliases) are now supported for ZWO cameras and filter wheels. If one is already set in either of these devices and has not yet connected to it under NINA 3.0, the device will need to be selected again and connected in NINA's Camera or Filter Wheel equipment selection list. This change makes it easier to support setups where multiple ZWO cameras and filter wheels are present.
Device IDs are limited to 8 ASCII characters in length.
ZWO EFWs must have firmware version 3.0.9 or later to support storing persistent device IDs.
The command line options have been revisited. Previously /profileid <profile id> was available. This has been changed to --profileid <profile id>. See below for more details.
Flat Wizard logic has been revamped and can now also be used inside the sequencer. See below for more details.
The "Loop for time" condition and "Wait for time" instruction have been redesigned. When selecting dawn or dusk times, the rollover will now occur at sunrise or sunset, respectively. For example, when dusk is selected, the rollover will happen at dawn.
The native driver for Pegasus Ultimate Power Box v2 has been removed. The Pegasus Unity ASCOM driver supersedes this implemenatation and should be used instead.
The native driver for PrimaLuceLab EAGLE has been removed. The EAGLE ASCOM Switch Driver supersedes this implemenatation and should be used instead.
SGP Server API has been removed from the core application. Instead this is available as a plugin via "SGP Server Emulation"
Touptek, RisingCam, Altair, MallinCam, OgmaCam and OmegonCam now supports HDR modes if available. The "High Conversion Gain" toggle has been removed and instead this is controlled via ReadoutModes!
DARKFLAT has been removed from the selection of image types. They really are just DARKs and are classified as such. Previous saved sequences and templates will be automatically migrated.
.NET 8:
The application has transitioned to .NET 8. This is not merely a version upgrade from the previously used .NET Framework 4.8. Instead, .NET 8 is rooted in .NET Core, representing a complete rewrite of the .NET Framework by Microsoft. This marks a significant technical advancement for N.I.N.A.
Plugins from previous versions are disabled. They must be patched by the plugin authors and targeted specifically for the new version to ensure compatibility with .NET 8.
Improvements:
Profile Chooser on startup will now be shown before the whole application is initializing
This change also fixes the issue that sequence templates are loaded from the first profile when switching it in the chooser instead of the one being chosen
The guider tab will now also show the dither pixels translated to the main camera based on the guider pixel scale reported by the connected guiding application
N.I.N.A. will attempt to synchronize the mount's clock with that of the computer's. Not all mount drivers support this feature. A warning will be displayed if the difference between the clocks is more than 10 seconds and the mount time cannot be set
ZWO: Native driver for ZWO EFWs now supports setting the Unidirectional option as well as initiate a calibration run.
ZWO: The native driver for ZWO cameras now supports managing the Mono Bin feature of models with color sensors.
QHY: Added support for 6x6 and 8x8 bin modes to the QHY native driver. This applies to camera models that support these modes.
GNSS devices: Support for retrieving site location information has been expanded to enable different types of sources:
NMEA serial GNSS devices
PegasusAstro Uranus Meteo
PrimaLuceLab Eagle's GPS and Eagle Manager X
In the Imaging Tab above the image preview, a new button to flip an image horizontally per click is added. Each following image will then also be flipped. This flip is for display only and doesn't affect the data.
Further parallelization of post image capture actions. This should especially speed up capturing using a dslr native driver where the time consuming raw conversion will no longer hold up the next exposure.
Added an option to Options > Equipment > Telescope to define automatic sync direction of location. This can be used to supress a user prompt for automatic connection and control.
Plugin folder in %localappdata%NINAPlugins now contain a subfolder with the Major.Minor.Revision version of the application containing plugins for the current version. This will make it simpler to upgrade and downgrade application versions without having to exchange plugins for developers. From user perspective nothing will change as everything is automatically migrated.
Sequencer Sidebar Tab for Templates and Targets now indicate a load progress when the list is refreshed and should also load faster.
In Options you can now specify custom plugin repositories for privately hosted plugins
Autofocus report JSON files now append the profile id in their filename and get filtered in the application by only using the relevant files from the current profile
Mini sequencer will now auto scroll to active items
The SkyX Imagelink is now available as a plate solver
DC-3 Dreams PinPoint is now available as a plate solver
When switching profiles the "Switch Filter" instruction will rematch the filter selection based on the name or the index
In framing tab and Deep Sky Object Containers you can now paste in full text coordinates into the RA/Dec text fields and they will be parsed into the separate boxes - e.g. when pasting the following string into the textbox the coordinates will be fully populated: RA: 05h43m05s.90 DEC: +52°10′58″.0
When sending location to the telescope the elevation is now handled separately and a different error message is shown
DitherAfterExposures will only trigger when the next item is an exposure item of type LIGHT
Added a new toggle in the framing assistant to control the automatic saving of images for the offline sky map. If you're using the complete offline map from the homepage, you can disable this setting to prevent changes to the cache.
Within the imaging tab, several panels now feature a settings button on the upper right corner. This button allows you to reveal or conceal adjustable settings for that particular panel.
In conjunction with this update, the HFR History panel has been modified. It will now use the aforementioned settings button, eliminating the previous feature where settings appeared upon mouse hover.
Every equipment panel now features an "Info only" switch, allowing users to opt for purely informational displays or to incorporate interactive controls.
Changed the default application theme to "Persian Faint"
Reverse autofocus direction when backlash compensation mode is set to "Overshoot" and a BacklashIN value is specified, to reduce the amount of required backlash compensation during autofocus
Native autofocus will now properly show star detection result in the image statistics panel
The native autofocus mechanism has been upgraded to simultaneously process images while shifting to new focus points, which enhances the speed of the entire autofocus operation.
Offset is now displayed next to Gain in the Image Statistics window
Commandline Options:
Multiple command line options have been added to be able to adjust some of the startup parameters for the application
-p, --profileid Load profile for a given id at startup.
-s, --sequencefile Load a sequence file at startup.
-r, --runsequence (Default: false) Automatically start a sequence loaded with -s and switch to Imaging tab.
-x, --exitaftersequence (Default: false) Automatically exit the application after the sequence has been finished.
--help Display this help screen.
--version Display version information
Flat Wizard Rework:
Flat Wizard screen:
The Binning and Gain settings have been relocated to align with other settings, and they can now be configured on a filter-specific basis.
Additionally it is now also possible to specify a camera offset
A step size is no longer required. The algorithm will now initiate at (Min+Max/2) and continually halve to determine the optimal exposure time.
The option for dark frames is concealed when selecting sky flats; due to variable exposure times with sky flats, darks become redundant.
Internally the flat wizard will now use the new advanced sequencer instructions
The Flat Wizard will now save the exposure used to determine the exposure time, reducing the overall number of exposures taken by one and saving time
Trained Flat Exposure List:
The settings page to view and maintain the trained flat exposures for the flat device has been reworked
Trained exposures are now presented in a single unified grid, replacing the previous multiple grids.
The new layout aims to enhance user comprehension and simplify manual adjustments.
Settings from previous versions will be seamlessly migrated to this new format.
New Instructions for advanced sequencer:
Auto Exposure Flat: An instruction to find an exposure time for a static flat brightness
Auto Brightness Flat: An instruction to find a flat panel brightness for a static exposure time
Sky Flat: Similar to the Flat Wizard sky flat, this will take flat frames that have a constantly adjusted exposure time while progressing to compensate for illumination changes due to sun altitude.
File Formats:
FITS:
Implemented functionality to read compressed data into Framing Assistant and Camera Simulator
Added a toggle to use CFITSIO to write FITS files. This enables the following features:
Introduced checksum support for enhanced data integrity.
Expanded storage options to include compressed formats, utilizing RICE, GZIP1, GZIP2, PLIO, and HCOMPRESS algorithms. Notably, RICE offers an optimal balance of speed and compression efficiency
Enabled the storage of compressed FITS files with the ".fits.fz" extension for improved file identification
Added support for storing data in a 32-bit unsigned integer format
XISF:
Added support for storing data in a 32-bit unsigned integer format
Bugfixes:
Fixed SVBony Native driver, that was sometimes showing the exposure before the latest one after a cancelled exposure
Fixed PlayerOne resolution not fully resetting to complete size after subframe or binning
Added automatic retry of exposure start when POA_ERROR_EXPOSING error happens
Selecting a date in sky atlas no longer sets the date one day earlier than selected
Radius will now always be calculated and displayed in the plate solver window
AF after Exposures will now properly consider previous autofocus runs and reset its counter accordingly
Dither after exposures will no longer fail to run when clearing the image statistics history
Sky Atlas date picker now correctly sets the selected date instead of the day before the selected one
For relative ASCOM focusers the MaxIncrement is now considered for move commands
SBIG native driver no longer stores (incorrect 0) Gain in image meta data
When an update notification in the app was available but after the initial pop-up a new version was published, it will no longer fail the checksum check
ASCOM Camera ImageArray can now properly transform Byte[,], Short[,], UShort[,] in addition to the existing Int[,] to the 16 bit data structure N.I.N.A. is using
Dragging an instruction below a sequence container when nothing else is below it will now work correctly
When switching profiles, the dock layout will be saved piror to switching

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.3.1.9001 (Oct 8, 2023)

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.3.0.9001 (Sep 17, 2023)

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.2.0.9001 (Mar 26, 2023)

Bugfixes:
Fixed Slew to Alt/Az instruction not considering changes to Latitude & Longitude values
Loading a FITS File that contains exponential notation for double values should now have its headers be correctly read
Fixed an issue where the sequence was not able to be loaded when a plugin was missing
Fixed an issue for plugin focusers to not show the plugin specific settings section
When simple sequencer was set to "Rotate Through" mode, the estimated time calculation was incorrect when partially finished. It should now reflect the correct estimate.
Sending an image to framing wizard without setting a name will no longer cause the caching to fail
Fixed an issue for Atik OSC cameras where debayering would crash the application.
Using TIFF without compression selected now properly saves the files without any compression
"Clear all" button on notifications will now also properly clear all pending notifications
Image file patterns will now remove trailing and leading white spaces for directories and file names.
Features:
Added new Instruction "Set USB Limit" to control the usb limit inside the sequencer (if available)
A new toggle in options > general > advanced is available to disable hardware acceleration. Disabling this can be useful if you are experiencing graphic glitches or the application goes blank when using a remote client to connect to the pc.
Added native driver for OGMA cameras
In Options > Imaging > Image File Pattern it is now possible to set different patterns per image type. When no pattern is set for a specific image type the main image pattern will be taken.
NMEA GPS import now also imports the site elevation
Improvements:
The Field of View value in the Framing Tab is now limited to two decimal places
Camera simulator can now set arbitrary values for Offset and USB limit
Conditions now log on info level when they are done
Profile Chooser on startup will now be shown before the whole application is initializing
This change also fixes the issue that sequence templates are loaded from the first profile when switching it in the chooser instead of the one being chosen
Options > Equipment > Telescope > "Do not sync" is renamed to "Automatic Sync" and the toggle value is reversed. To not send syncs to the mount this should be turned off. The behavior is unchanged, only the UI shows it in reversed logic.
Snapshot panel in imaging tab now has a targetname field to enter a value manually to be used for the $$TARGETNAME$$ image pattern when the toggle to save the image is enabled
Altair, Mallincam, Omegon, Risingcam and Touptek:
Added High Fullwell Mode control for cameras that support it (also added for custom device actions)
Added target dew heater strength control to be able to reduce the strength of the dew heater if supported (also added for custom device actions)
High Gain, Ultra Mode, High Fullwell and Dew Heater Strength settings are now stored in the profile and will be restored on next connect
PlayerOne:
Added temperature control for cooled camera series
Cooled cameras can now control dew heater and fan strength
Native driver for Player One Filter Wheels is now available
Fixed an issue that USB limit could not be set correctly

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.1.0.9001 (Nov 15, 2022)

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.0.2.9001 (Oct 14, 2022)

Bugfixes:
Fixed QHY Camera selection being lost on rescan
Imaging Platesolve Panel will preset initial gain from platesolve settings
Flat Wizard not showing results until N.I.N.A. restarted for some filters
Flat Wizard Sky Flat Mode no longer closes a flat device cover when connected
AutofocusAfterTemperatureChangeTrigger did not set initial temperature correctly when focuser was not connected on sequence start
Improvements:
Guide Chart Colors can now be customized in the guider tab
Plugin load times have been improved
Framing Assistant now accepts fractional second inputs for RA and declination and will display them out to the tenth of a second.
Added instance number setting to PHD2 to be able to have N.I.N.A. autostart PHD2 with multiple instances and not just the first one
Changed Message Box Instruction to include "Stop Sequence" button along with "Continue" to be able to stop the sequence in case this is used as a checkpoint
When PHD2 Configuration Changes happen, N.I.N.A. will now requery the pixel scale in case the focal length or pixel size setting of the guider has changed
Improved layout of plate solve pop up during centering and added a status indicator inside the window as well
Plate solve pop out from solve button above the image inside the imaging tab now shows the thumbnail and also keeps the solve history
Aberration inspector no longer pops up a new window but is instead a toggleable button and replaces the image itself. This also allows for looping exposures and keeping the inspector updated.
Framing Assistant Cache list has a button added to delete individual entries
Atik native driver improvements:
Full support for Apx26/Apx60 exposure speeds and presets
Fast readout/preview mode may be selected on CCD models that support them
Window heater may now be controlled on models that are equipped with one
16bit output is now explicitly configured on CMOS models that support both 12bit and 16bit output
Many thanks to Atik Cameras, Ltd. for loaning a 428ex camera for use in the testing and improvement of the native driver
Features:
Enhanced Meridian Flip options with a toggle to automatically rotate the target in the imaging tab for displaying purposes
Added an option in the filter wheel options to disable guiding during a filter change. This can be useful when having filter focus offsets and overshoot backlash compensation enabled to prevent losing guide stars.
Custom Action to toggle Low Noise, High Gain, Fan Speed and Average Binning via custom device actions added to Altair, Mallincam, Omegon, Risingcam and Touptek cameras. This action can be controlled via plugins.
Valid parameters for Low Noise, High Gain and Average Binning are "0", "off", "no", "false", "f", "1", "on", "yes", "true", "t"
Valid parameters for Fan Speed are integer values from 0 to Max Fan Speed
Added additional options that relate to dome or roll-off-roof shutter operation. Please review the notice in the Shutter Coordination area of Options > Dome settings.
In the Sequencer Sidebar inside the Instructions Tab a new button is added to enter a Settings Mode - There individual instructions can be disabled to be shown in the sidebar or in the context menus. For example when you have no dome, you can hide all dome instructions to not clog up space.
Collapse and Expand all button is added to the sequencer sidebar for the Instructions Tab
Plugin Enablement:
Added interfaces that allow plugins to provide device drivers
Each device type can also provide dedicated settings in the equipment setting sections
This change will make it necessary for plugins to be loaded completely before being able to connect to the devices.
Plugins can now query for Telescope "DestinationSideOfPier"
New Plugin Eventhooks to react on Befor/After MeridianFlip and After Dithers

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.0.1.9001 (Aug 28, 2022)

Bugfixes:
Changed the default value for ASCOM Camera BayerOffsetX/BayerOffsetY to be 0, instead of -1, when not available via the driver
Corrections made to assorted entries in the NINA object database
Fix an issue where for some coordinates, the coordinates were off by one arcminute after reloading it into the sequence from file, due to double precision rounding issues
Touch input is now working properly when dragging the rectangle in framing assistant
When the filter is changed while the Smart Exposure or Simple Sequencer Exposure is already running, the first exposure afterwards no longer uses the previous filter but switches to the expected new filter
Fixed an issue where the Camera Cooling Charts could get stuck and not update anymore
Improvements:
Improved error message presentation if the selected sky survey image serivce fails to accept a request
The image save queue size can now be adjusted to allow for more concurrent image processing and save operations. Do be careful when changing this, as it will increase overall system resource usage during fast image captures
Wait For Time | Loop Until Time - When no dusk/dawn is available at the current date the instructions will now show an error instead of falling back to the current time
Wait For Time | Loop Until Time - When the date changes (at noon) the instructions will now automatically redetermine the times
Altitude charts across the app should now automatically update on a new date (at noon with a maximum of ~10 minutes delay)
Replaced old FITS library for reading FITS files with CFITSIO. Opening FITS files should now be much faster
Plugin initialization now shows a status in the application status bar
Framing mosaics can now also be done with overlapping pixel count instead of an overlap percentage
Guider settings could only be set when being connected. Now these settings are also available in the setup screen of each guider without requiring a connection
When cloning a profile, the dock config for that profile will be cloned too
Simple Sequencer - "Cool Camera" toggled to on will also turn on dew heater when available as well as "Warm Camera" toggled to on will turn off the dew heater when enabled
"Wait For Time", "Wait for Timespan" and Settle reports now count down instead of up in the progress report
Standard Autofocus: Break out of autofocus when a large number of points were taken without success or when the focuser hits the zero position
When loading a file for framing that needs to be platesolved the prompt that shows up now has more details and values can be adjusted if required. This should make it more clear of what is happening.
Features:
Added interfaces and capabilities so that plugins can inject custom image meta data and image file patterns
Added missing Sharpless, LBN, Collinder, and Caldwell designations to existing entries in NINA's object database
AstcamPan cameras can now be controlled via a native driver implementation
The last plate solve failure in each session, target and solver type will now be kept for further error analysis and automatically cleaned up after seven days
Added a toggle in Options > General > Advanced to only have one imaging tab layout for all profiles instead of it being profile dependent
In Options > Imaging > Layout two new buttons have been added to backup and restore the imaging tab layout
Added interfaces for plugins to register to FailureEvents inside the SequenceRootContainer to react on all failures that are raised during a sequence
Deep Sky Object Containers now also show a section with exposure times done on that particular target.
When a target is saved these recorded exposure times are also stored with it to be reloaded at a later point
Furthermore this info will also be used to set the $$FRAMENR$$ for exposures in the context of that target to have a continuous increment
Rows can manually be removed and the counter will reset
In the Imaging Tab above the image preview, a new button to rotate an image by 90° per click is added. Each following image will then also be rotated. This rotation is for display only and doesn't affect the data.

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.0.1.2011 Beta (Jul 25, 2022)

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.0.1.2002 Beta (Jun 20, 2022)

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 2.0.0.9001 (Jun 6, 2022)

Important change of existing settings and panels:
Options page tab location is moved to the left instead of the top to be similar to main tabs
Sequencer end options have been moved into the simple sequencer tab
Sequencer is split into the old style sequencing and a new much more adjustable advanced sequencer
Meridian Flip settings show no longer an enabled flag, but must be enabled in the simple sequencer screen or added as a trigger into the advanced sequencer instead
Autofocus options have been moved into a separate tab
PHD2 specific settings are now available in the equipment guider tab after connection
Sky Atlas altitude search is reworked to specify a duration for a time range instead of needing the target to be above for the whole time frame
Optimal exposure calculator is removed from the core application, but available as a plugin
X86 Deprecation:
The x86 version of N.I.N.A. will be phased out after version 2.0. It is already reduced in capabilities, due to the limitations of the x86 platform, and will be removed completely in future.
Parallel saving and processing of images is disabled for x86. They will be processed and then saved sequentially
Debayering and related settings are disabled for x86
Plugins might not be compatible with x86
Nikon offers no more x86 SDK libraries
Offline Sky Map Image Cache rendering is not available for x86
Complete Sequencer Rework:
Sequence Tab changed to show a sequence navigation first:
Old Sequencer has been renamed to "Simple Sequencer"
The internal engine for the simple sequencer has been completely revamped. The simple sequencer will use the advanced sequencer framework internally while exposing a similar user interface that was used previously
If required a simple sequence can be generated into the advanced sequence for fine tuning
Instead of loading an empty target by default, the UI will show a separate UI when no target was set, where the user can choose which kind of sequence should be loaded instead or jump directly into the advanced sequencer
End of sequence options are moved from the options tab to the sequence tab
Introduced new start of sequence options to be used
A new toggle to "Rotate Target" to the desired orientation has been added. Previously this was always done when a rotator was connected and skipped when it was not connected. The new approach should be much more intuitive for the user to understand when rotation will be considered or not.
Removed external command and flat panel items from the simple sequencer UI, as these are only for advanced usage and not used by the majority that use the simple sequencer
Added support for fetching sky view and location coordinates from the C2A and SkytechX planetarium programs
Sequence mode loop has been changed sligthly to not define a number of exposures on each row but rather on the whole sequence instead to loop through.
New Advanced Sequencer:
In this area a custom sequence can be built completely from scratch by individual small building blocks
Each user has a different flow of how a sequence should look like. This advanced planning can serve most requirements that a user might have.
The building blocks consist of these categories:
Instruction Sets
These sets group together different instructions
Templates can be generated out of these sets to be used later with the same parameters
Instructions
These are the individual steps to automate the sequence
Each item has a different operation, like switching to a filter or taking an exposure
Trigger
Triggers are part of an instruction set and are evaluated after each instruction is processed
They have certain conditions that are checked and when these are fullfilled the triggers will fire
Examples for these are autofocus after certain parameters, merdian flip or dithering after an amount of exposures
Triggers are always cascading. So a trigger on an instruction set on a higher level than the currently executed instruction set will also be evaluated
Loop Conditions
These conditions are attached to an instruction set and drive the behavior of the set
As long as a condition is fullfilled, the instruction set will be looped
Once a condition is not fullfilled anymore, all remaining instructions inside an instruction set will be skipped
Loop conditions are always cascading. So a conditions on an instruction set on a higher level than the currently executed instruction set will also be evaluated
Templates
Each instruction set can be saved as a template
These templates store all info that has been set inside the instruction set and can be restored for later usage
Furthermore these will be stored physically inside the default sequence folder and can be reorganized there
Sub folders inside the default sequence folder are possible and will group these templates together
Targets
Each Deep Sky Object Sequence be saved as a target
These target store all info that has been set inside the deep sky object sequence and can be restored for later usage
Furthermore these will be stored physically inside the default sequence folder and can be reorganized there
New Plugin Tab:
With the introduction of the advanced sequencer, a sequence can be planned with individual building blocks. These blocks have been designed to work like small plugins that will be initialized on startup. This opens up the possibility for specialized custom plugins that can be installed independently on demand.
To manage these custom plugins for the advanced sequencer a new application tab page has been introduced. There a user can setup and see all installed plugins as well as having the possiblity to see, install and update plugins from the official online plugin repository.
Plugins can currently hook into the advanced sequencer, add new dock panels in the imaging tab or add different behaviors for autofocus, star detection and star annotation. More areas to be pluggable are planned for the future.
The main benefit of these plugins are the possibility to create very specialized behavior, that would only benefit by a smaller user base, without cluttering the application with these capabilities for users that do not need this special behavior.
Framing Tab:
Instead of sending the current target to the sequencer, the user will be prompted to either choose the simple sequencer or directly send the target to the new advanced sequencer while also being able to choose from different templates
Replacing of the complete targets is removed, as this is not necessary.
Possibility to manually enter target rotation
A new multi action button replaces the slew button. This button can either "slew", "slew and center" or "slew, center and rotate" your current framing
Improved precision when dragging the rectangle around, especially for longer distances
Added a new option to preserve the alignment when being far away from celestial equator where panels won't be perfectly aligned to a rectangle anymore when having the same rotation
Visually show the misalignment when having the same rotation for each panel when being further away from the celestial equator
Added a new grid showing the mosaic panel coordinates and orientations
Added a center dot for the framing rectangle
A new toggle is available to toggle the sky background instead of the framing rectangle
The Sky Object Annotation will now properly draw elliptical objects when position angle and size information is available instead of always showing them as circular
Offline Sky Map can now show images from the cache (x64 only). The "Sky Atlas Image Repository" could unfortunately not be lifted for this, but existing images from the cache in framing will can be used.
Imaging Tab - Sequence Panel:
As the new sequencer has a dynamic operation mode, the old summary is not feasible anymore when using the advanced sequencer
Instead the sequence panel will show a minimized representation of the advanced sequence, where you can see the instructions with basic details
When using the simple sequencer the old style will still be shown instead
New hardware support:
SkyGuard:
Integration of SkyGuard in NINA
Added of SkyGuard Guider and its setup
Implementation of the Connect, Disconnect, StartGuiding, StopGuiding and Dither methods
MGEN3:
Full control of the MGEN3 by mirroring the controller display into N.I.N.A.'s user interface
Automatic power-on when connecting
Starts guiding on sequence start
Performs calibration and star auto-selection when required
Displays star drift during guiding in a graph
Dithering during sequencing
MetaGuide:
MetaGuide is now available as an option for a guiding application
SVBony:
Added a native driver for SVBony cameras. Currently without temperature control and tested with SVBony 305M Pro.
SBIG:
Added a native driver for SBIG cameras.
MallinCam:
Added native driver for MallinCam cameras.
Risingcam
Native support for Risingcam added
Player One:
Native support for Player One Cameras
ASCOM Dome:
ASCOM Domes are supported throughout the application
Natively provides azimuth synchronization with the telescope, so no additional applications are needed (such as ASCOM Device Hub)
Lateral offsets supported, enabling side-by-side telescope setups
When synchronization is enabled, telescope slews wait for the dome to synchronize before next actions, such as imaging and plate solving
Homes the dome prior to parking, which can improve the reliability of arriving precisely at the park location. This can be important if a shutter motor battery charges in the park position
Dome actions provided in the new sequencer
Enable dome synchronization
Open/Close shutter
Park dome
ASCOM CoverCalibrator:
With the ASCOM Platform Version 6.5 a new type of interface was added called "CoverCalibrator".
These are basically flat panel devices which will now be available to choose from in the application under the flat panel section
ASCOM SafetyMonitor:
An ASCOM device to monitor safe conditions for an imaging run
These devices can be used inside the sequencer to interrupt an imaging run, when they report unsafe conditions
Option to automatically close the dome shutter immediately when the safety monitor reports unsafe conditions
Native support for Atik EFW2/3 and internal Filterwheels:
The integrated filter wheels for Atik cameras like the Atik One 9.0 are now natively supported
This allows usage of native camera drivers for Atik cameras with integrated filter wheels
The Atik EFW2 and 3 can also be natively connected without using the ASCOM driver
Improvements for Altair, Touptek, Omegaon, Mallincam and Risingcam native drivers:
Native driver implementation unified for a common interface, as the underlying SDKs are similar
Additive binning can be turned on
Fan speed can be controlled when available
Binning info for these cameras are now properly inserted into Metadata
PHD2:
Dither will be skipped when not actively guiding or the guide star was lost
Settle time will now correctly be considered when starting guiding
Guiding start timeout will not consider calibration time and will also be used when "Guiding start retry" is off
Guiding start retry will not retry more than three times to prevent an infinite loop
A ROI percentage can now be set for PHD2 to be considered during guidestar search
Profiles can now be switched from the list of available PHD2 profiles
Device-related Improvements:
canon: Automatically send request to increase shutdown time, when camera is about to shutdown
Nikon: Fixed an issue where cancelling an exposure would lead to unexpected bulb exposure times
Flat Device Brightness is no longer expressed in percentage, but rather in the absolute values the flat panel supports
Flat Device trained brightness levels will be automatically migrated from percentage to absolute values after first flat panel device connection.
Filter Wheel List of Filters are now all using the list from the profile instead of having a mix of filters from the ASCOM driver and those from the profile. De-Sync of these lists can't happen anymore.
Some mount drivers have reversed primary and secondary axis implementation for manual movements. Now a reverse flag is available to manually correct this behavior.
ASCOM Camera driver can now handle odd sensor width & height for mono sensors. A setting to enable this new behavior is available.
ASCOM connection and disconnection logic is now unified between all devices to ensure same bahvior
ASCOM connection that is lost without any raised error will now be tried to be reconnected one time. If an error happens due to that the application will disconnect like before.
ASCOM get and set methods use a unified logic to ensure same behavior for all devices
FLI: Background flush is now disabled prior to readout to prevent a hung readout
FLI: Filter wheel driver now removes any extraneous / character from single-filter positions on CenterLine filter wheels
MGEN2 now supports unattended guide star selection and calibration, and automatic meridian flips
Altair, MallinCam, Omegon, RisingCam and ToupTek subsampling is now available
Application Improvements:
General:
The application distribution is now code signed
Application window will now remember its placing and state
Application initialization is utilizing more parallel processing to startup faster.
Application logs are vastly improved to log a lot more info of what is happening at the various levels. INFO level will also contain a lot more info of what is happening at a high level.
It is now possible to change the application font in the options
It is now possible to start, resume and cancel sequences from the preview window
Options menu has been restructured to adhere to the Equipment layout
Auto-focus is now its own tab in the Options menu
Empty gain and offset settings will now always reflect the settings set in Equipment - Camera (valid for imaging, sequence and auto-focus)
Any active field of view or ocular rotation angle is now imported along with coordinates from Stellarium and TheSky X
New translation for Czech (Čeština) has been added
New translation for Norwegian Bokmal (Norsk bokmål) has been added
New translation for Korean (한국어) has been added
Can send the sequencer target coordinates to the Framing Wizard
Improved Meridian Flip reliability by retrying when changing the pier or slewing close to the meridian fails. NINA now provides a warning suggesting to increase the meridian wait time if this hapens
Guider settings moved to the guider equipment page making them easier to find and exposing only settings relevant for each type of guider
Connect all button now connects all devices in a sequential order to prevent collisions with com port scanning that could happen
After hitting connect all button, it will show highlighted and when hit again it will disconnect all devices instead
Meridian Flip now allows for a time range instead of a single point in time to allow for less time lost
Some areas where the user interface was clipped on lower resolutions (down to 720p) are now showing all details
Telescope panel in imaging tab now shows an indicator when the telescope is not unparked
Telescope Park action will now wait for the scope to reach park position
Profile chooser on startup can now be re-activated in options again once it is disabled
Guiding gets stopped before any telescope-moving sequencer command gets executed
Gain/Offset fields will now show the default values as a hint text, rather than being populated inside the textbox itself. Having this approach, a user can directly enter specific values without having to clear the default value first.
The imaging tab layout is now saved per profile, instead of one layout for all profiles
Most options and values now also display a unit of measure if applicable
Weather information in equipment tab now shows correct wind direction.
Various layout improvements and redesign of controls
Flat Wizard page controls are streamlined with the rest of the application by replacing the sliders with steppers
When closing a dock panel in the imaging tab and reopening it again, the position is properly restored
Cooling charts in the camera equipment tab have been merged into one single chart with the history size increased from 100 to 1000
On web requests the user-agent header is now filled properly
An autofocus indicator in the HFR history will no longer change the Y-Axis scale
The automatic roll over to a blind solver can now be switched off in the plate solver tab
For the first image in an image view control, the image will now be shown as size to fit instead of 1:1 by default
Profiles can now store an arbitrary description
Pixel inspector on imaging tab (by holding right click on an image) now also includes min, max and mean of the pixel area
Subsampling:
The sub sample button above the image panel has been removed
In the imaging camera control panel when subsampling is enabled a new control will be visible to adjust the subsampling directly there
This should be more intuitive to use and does not require a certain order of operations and an active non sub sampled image to set up
Local Horizon Display:
It is now possible to define a custom horizon to be used and displayed in the altitude charts
Using these custom horizons will make target planning a lot more convenient when only a portion of the sky is available
The horizon file consists of a simple mapping of azimuth to altitude values
The sky atlas has a new entry for altitude filter to filter for the object to be above the horizon for the specified time range
Sky Atlas:
The sky atlas has a new entry for altitude filter to filter for the object to be above the horizon for the specified duration
Filter for time from/through is now only showing time without a day
Altitude filter is changed to use a duration instead of a start and end time
Moon distance is now shown in the list for each object. Furthermore a new filter is added to filter by moon distance.
Auto-focus system:
Auto-focus can now have different settings for gain, offset and binning per filter
When using an autofocus filter with offsets this filter will now also be used for the first and last measurement instead of the filter prior to starting the auto focus
During an auto-focus run while taking an image, if the download fails it will be automatically retried up to two times to try to recover
A new optional setting R² threshold can now be set. When this threshold is non-zero, the autofocus run has to fullfill a minimum required R² - Coefficient of determination - above this threshold to be considered as successful.
File name patterns and FITS keywords:
Keyword list to choose from is now grouped by category
Added CENTALT, and CENTAZ keywords
Added AIRMASS keyword, calculated from mount altitude using Gueymard 1993
Added $$CAMERA$$ file pattern
Added $$TELESCOPE$$ file pattern
Added $$ROTATEANGLE$$ file pattern
Added $$STARCOUNT$$ file pattern
Added $$TEMPERATURESETPOINT$$ file pattern
Included Camera SDK Versions can now be found inside the about page of N.I.N.A.

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 1.10.3.9001 (Jun 11, 2021)

Improvements:
The camera temperature setpoint is now displayed only when the cooler is active
A secondary HIPS2 server will be attempted if the main HIPS2 image server is not available
Canon cameras will now be kept awake to avoid camera auto-shutdown
Meridian flip will now be considered on objects traversing through their lowest altitude too
QHYCCD native driver improvements:
IMPORTANT: NINA 1.10 HF3 (and later) require at least QHY System Pack version 21.02.20.19 to be installed
Improvements to reliability
Seamless switching between 11M and 47M modes for the QHY294 Pro
QHY CCDs that have fast and slow readout modes can now select the mode
QHY cameras that have sensor chamber air pressure and humidity sensors will display their readings on the Equipment > Camera screen
QHY camera firmware and FPGA versions are now displayed on the Equipment > Camera screen
The integrated filter wheels of A-Series cameras should now operate correctly
Live View function has been disabled for QHY cameras. It was functionally inoperative and will be discontinued for all but Canon and Nikon in 1.11
The version of the QHY USB driver will be checked and a warning will be presented if it is not the minimum recommended version
Bug fixes:
Nikon: Cancelled or aborted exposures are now properly handled
FLI: Stop background flush prior to reading out the sensor
ASCOM camera: SensorType is no longer considered to be a mandadory property
Fixed an issue when the location for ASTAP and ASPS where entered manually the validation was incorrect to assume a folder instead of a file
When subsampling selection was still active after the app already subsampled an image it would further try to subsample. In some occasions this could cause a crash. The subsampling rectangle is now disabled after the first additional capture.
Included Camera SDK Versions:
Altair Astro: 48.18830.20210423
Atik: 2020.08.3.642
Canon: 13.13.0.6408
FLI: 1.104.0.0
Nikon: 1.3.2.3000
Omegon: 39.15325.2019.810
QHY: 21.02.19.19
ToupTek: 48.18081.2020.1205
ZWO: 1.16.3

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 1.10.2.2010 Beta (Jan 14, 2021)

New in Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy 1.10.1.9001 (Jan 6, 2021)

Improvements:
Canon CR3 image format is now supported (use FreeImage as your RAW converter)
Adding support for the EOS R5 and EOS R6
Added $$CAMERA$$ file pattern
Added $$TELESCOPE$$ file pattern
Added $$ROTATEANGLE$$ file pattern
Added $$STARCOUNT$$ file pattern
Telescope views now display the side of pier when available
Replaced LZ4 library with a more optimized one for faster XISF compression
Save target set in sequence screen is now enabled also when sequence is running
Added info logs for start exposure, download location and star detection
Rotators will now display the sky angle as the current position, when rotation via plate solving was invoked
Added toggle to reverse direction for rotators
Bugfixes:
When using a DSLR and Astrometry.net the uploaded file is now correctly sent as FITS instead of raw format
Log files now show correct operating system version
Cancelling a sequence that is paused, will no longer throw a semaphore error
Set white balance and gamma to 50 for ASI native driver on connection
FITS header parsing can now deal with keywords that don't have any comment at all
Safeguard against NaN values for Hfr Std Deviation which could ruin an autofocus run
Fix issue for QHY cameras to dither too early when camera was still exposing
Images that are mirrored (e.g. on a scope like a hyperstar) now have a correct rotation inside the framing wizard
Fixed a problem with Nikon Shutterspeeds between 1s and 30s not being parsed correctly in certain locale settings
Fixed an issue when using the file camera together with dithering, where the dither signal was triggered directly after starting the exposure, as the file camera directly switched to download state. Instead the file camera will wait for the exposure time instead before switching to download state.
Included Camera SDK Versions:
Altair Astro: 48.17729.2020.922
Atik: 2020.08.3.642
Canon: 13.12.31
FLI: 1.104.0.0
Nikon: 1.3.1.3001
Omegon: 39.15325.2019.810
QHY: 20.8.26.3
ToupTek: 46.17309.2020.616
ZWO: 1.15.9.15