Astroart 7 SP6

[fabdev]

Hello, a new minor version of Astroart is available for download at:

http://www.msb-astroart.com/

Version 7.0 SP6 - March 03, 2021
-------------------------------

* New feature. Remove gradient adaptive with parameter.
* New feature. Cut borders for images downloaded from the camera.
* New feature. Normalization for all methods of image stacking.
* New feature. Sync for rotators under ASCOM 6.5.
* New feature. Script commands for domes.
* Improved. Compress star filter multicore.
* Improved. Faster pixel operations in scripts.
* Improved. Telescope park and tracking status is shown.
* Bug fix. Some AVIs could not be opened in 64 bits.
* Bug fix. Ring median filter could not be stopped correctly.
* Bug fix. North and South poles could not be plate solved.
* Bug fix. Script command Guider.WaitStar might crash the script.
* Bug fix. Profile did not work well if one point outside the image.

Some notes:
Remove gradient adaptive now has a "low pass" parameter. At 100% it works like before, correcting well images which contain a big object. However if the object is small, so there's a star field around it, reducing the parameter to 20%-30% gives a much finer correction.
In the past Normalization was enabled only for Sigma stacking, now it's possible to use it also for Median and other methods, and it's possible to select the normalization algorithm (Add, Multiply, see the Help for more information).
Script commands Image.GetPixel and SetPixel are now much faster, to allow custom image analysis and processing in the script.
The SP6 also contains three last-minute "unofficial" features: the Destripe plugin has been integrated and can be called (also from Macros and from Preprocessing) with the command "Repair Row 90000" for horizontal stripes and "Repair Column 90000" for vertical stripes. Autofocus can be started from a user defined position (0..5000) with the prefix "99", for example "992750" for starting from 2750. Some new script commands for pixel processing are available, they will be explained in the Script section of the Forum.

Clear skies,
Fabio.

[Emilio]

Thanks Fabio.

[Dunmunro]

Hi. I think I found an error in AA7 SP6. I installed ASCOM 6.5 whilst installing the latest ASI ASCOM driver, but I don't know if that's relevant. Anyways I was having a problem with FF guiding in AA8 with an ASI120MM mini and the previous ASI ASCOM driver. So I closed AA8 and began using AA7 SP6, and it's FF guiding worked fine but AA7 SP6 binned all my main camera images 2x2 (Orion Starshoot V2 3040 x 2024 pixels) regardless of the binning settings. This problem doesn't occur in AA8 and the guiding problems I was having disappeared with the latest ASCOM platform and the latest ASI ASCOM drivers.

I only noticed this after trying to process the images taken with AA7 SP6 and they were all binned 2x2 and I just tested AA7 SP6 and it still 2x2 bins all the main camera images.

[fabdev]

Hi, maybe in AA7 it was enabled the option "Binning software 2x2" in the Camera Options (Options / Images / Format) ?
Maybe a similar option is enabled in the Orion Starshoot ASCOM driver ?

[Dunmunro]

Hi, maybe in AA7 it was enabled the option "Binning software 2x2" in the Camera Options (Options / Images / Format) ?
Maybe a similar option is enabled in the Orion Starshoot ASCOM driver ?

I'll check that. I thought I had reviewed all the binning options and there are no binning options in the Starshoot ASCOM settings.

[Dunmunro]

Hi, maybe in AA7 it was enabled the option "Binning software 2x2" in the Camera Options (Options / Images / Format) ?
Maybe a similar option is enabled in the Orion Starshoot ASCOM driver ?

Yes! The software binning option was checked. Problem solved.