[Sticky] Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta35 release notes

Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta35 release notes

Please check the release notes video on our YouTube channel here:

• IMPROVED & FIXED 3) ANALYSE STARS - cosmic ray / noise reducer is almost redundant now ! Mosaics should register more easily !

  We have made several modifications in star recognition to make star analysis and the star count more robust for data that is a bit noisy or has very under- or oversampled stars. Some APP users had to enable the cosmic ray/noise reducer to be able to get the images register properly because APP would register on hot pixels or cosmic rays instead of stars and that would produce a weird and fuzzy result which is shown in the below screenshots. All reported data where this happened should now work without having to enable the cosmic ray/noise reducer. Only data with an extreme amount of actual cosmic rays would need to enable the cosmic ray reducer to get accurate results now. All the code changes in 3) Analyse Stars makes this module much more robust now for normal data, but definitely also for mosaic data.  APP will detect more stars now on the borders of your images, so registration with little overlap in your mosaic should work better now. And the stars that are found now, should really be stars. Finally, the star counts are high and realistic now if you disable the automatic stars target as well. We have tested this on several complicated mosaics and they work fine now, we were even able to register a mosaic that would never work easily until now, a 23 panel mosaic from infrared data from the WISE telescope (see screenshot below), APP finds more and better stars now and thus registration is more robust.

• IMPROVED continue on ERRORS without warnings

  We have added a new option to the LICENSE & SETTINGS menu called continue on ERRORS without warnings. If you enable this, APP will continue processing despite possible errors on some of the light frames after steps 3) Analyse Stars, 4) Register or 5) Normalize.  For instance, if you load light frames and would directly go to 6) INTEGRATE and click on integrate, APP would simply continue processing despite possible errors and it would produce an integrated result of your light frames from the frames that actually pass the steps 3), 4) and 5) without errors. Please note, the errors in this case mean regular data problems that prevent APP from processing your data normally and successfully. If an actual bug in our code occurs, APP will still stop and report the bug to the user. Please see the below screenshots, it shows the new setting in the LICENSE & SETTINGS menu, and the warning messages after 3) Analyse Stars, 4) Register or 5) Normalize will show information about this setting in the warning message, so the user can disable it if so wished.

• FIXED & IMPROVED Deep Sky / Comet Object name recognition from FITS OBJECT tags in light frames

  To start with, we have changed the label on the field to enter the object name to Deep Sky / Comet object name from Enter DeepSky object name and we have changed the color of it. Versions 2.0.0-beta33 & 2.0.0-beta34 would always ask the user for the object name when you start an integration, this is not wanted behaviour and it was introduced in beta33 where we have started to use the FITS OBJECT tag to get the object name of the imaging project. This change makes the behaviour now as prior to beta33 with the following improvements: if the user does not enter an object name in 1) Load in the Deep Sky / Comet object name: field, APP will put an object name there when light frames are loaded that have the FITS Object tag present, so the name is automatically found and the name will be put in the Deep Sky / Comet object name field. The other improvement is that if APP finds the name automatically or if the user enters a name manually, 6) integrate will never ask for the object name since it is already provided. These 2 improvements ensure that the behaviour is similar to version prior to beta33 and it does enhance user experience by finding the object name automatically if the user does not provide it manually. Finally an identical field to enter the object name is added to menu 6) integrate, just above the integrate button, so you can change the object name now there as well, which is useful if you want to create multiple integrations with different names for your own convenience. Both fields to enter the object name will mirror each contents automatically.

  

  

• FIXED FITS SAVE on computer with Arabic language or any other language with non-0-9/non-ascII formatted numbers
  

  We received a bug that showed that the FITS saver would not work on computers with the Arabic language. The issue was caused by getting date and time in arabic format instead of english.  This has been fixed. The error is shown as:

  

• IMPROVED 0) RAW/FITS, disable camera color matrix and camera white balance by default

  We have set the default settings for the camera color matrix and camera white balance to disabled, since we have received the feedback that only users that understand these settings will enable it and might use it with their camera. Please note that these 2 settings only affect the regular consumer camera's like Canon, Nikon, Sony, etcetera... and in most cases, the results with these settings disabled are better because the camera color matrix and camera white balance assume normal daylight photography and not modified camera sensors nor Light Pollution Surpression filters for instance...

• FIXED FITS READ error with MaximDL/iTelescope files

  As reported in this thread https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/main-forum/error-encountered-when-opening-fits-files/#post-32412 , loading a fits file created by MaximDL from iTelescope gave a NullPointerException in the FileDetailListUpdater module. The error is caused by a FITS WRITE error in MaximDL we think. The problem files have 2 FITS HDU/Headers with the exact same content and image data and the 2nd header misses a required FITS tag XTENSION to indicate what kind of data the header has according to the FITS specification. APP will catch this error now and will still be able to read and process these files. Please note, because these files have twice the exact same image data, they are also twice as large as they need to be. We have informed iTelescope.net about this issue.

• FIXED "RIGHT BUTTON" at bottom of main window with frame list in separate window

  As reported here:  https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/rfcs-request-for-changes/beta-2-0-0-beta6-qol-rfc-right-button-box/ , if you have the frame list panel in a separate window (You can set that in License & Settings) then in some cases a weird and big "RIGHT BUTTON" can be shown at the bottom of the main window. This has been fixed. The issue could also be created when you are in tool like the Remove Light Pollution tool where the frame list is automatically hidden. This has also been fixed.

• FIXED space bar can no longer deselect/select a frame in the frame list while entering a name in the Enter DeepSky object name field in 1)LOAD

  Previously, if you have loaded a frame into the image viewer, and you would enter a name with spaces in the Enter DeepSky object name field in 1)LOAD, the space bar would toggle the frame in the frame list from selected to deselected or back. This is no longer the case and thus fixed.

• FIXED ArrayIndexOutOfBounds exception in SumSignalInCropWorker

  As reported here,  https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/rfcs-request-for-changes/low-level-bug/#post-32300 , in some rare occasions an ArrayIndexOutOfBounds exception could be thrown in the SumSignalInCropWorker causing a problem to continue processing in APP. This error should be fixed now, and processing should continue automatically.