New version of SkySafari for Mac available

[Omaroo]

Just updated:

What's New in SkySafari Pro for Mac OS X

The latest release of SkySafari Pro for Mac OS X is 1.1, released 9 February 2012. Here are the new features and bug fixes included in this release:

Import your own custom horizon panoramas! Turn the horizon glow on or off. A new "Horizon Altitude" setting lets you show when objects rise/set above a specific altitude.

Delta updates! From now on, you'll be able to download much smaller updates to SkySafari Pro, instead of the entire updated disk image.

Multiple constellation display options can now be turned on at the same time. You can now display constellation lines overlaid with mythical figures!

Rearranged Object Info so it no longer blocks the main sky chart when visible. Added coordinate system to contextual (right-click) menus.

A new searchable location database now includes every city worldwide with more than 10,000 people, plus more than 500 "astronomical" locations - a total of 30,470 in all (vs. < 1500 previously). your user-defined locations are no longer overwritten.

Optimized grid drawing. Grid lines become progressively finer as you zoom in, with no slowdown at all. Added Equatorial and Galactic coordinates to sky chart and grid display, and angle format preferences.

You can now search for all objects in a star or deep sky catalog by typing just the catalog name or its standard abbreviation. For example, you can find all the Arp galaxies by searching for just "Arp". Search results and other object lists can now be made into observing lists.

Constellations are now searchable by common name (like "Southern Cross"). Variable star searches are now no longer case-sensitive. Guide Star Catalog stars are now searchable by GSC number (like "GSC 8988-2501").
Observing lists and settings files are now saved in human-readable format and exchangeable with SkySafari on other platforms. Fixed problems recovering faint asteroids from observing lists.

Satellite visual magnitudes are now computed correctly, using Mike McCant's data whenever possible. Fixed slowdown caused by computing satellite positions with very out-of-date orbits.

Fixed problem with displaying and setting times in the hours past 12 AM and 12 PM. Fixed positions and magnitudes of certain nebulae. Corrected inability to select small nebula symbols by tapping on them. Added Arp catalog numbers to galaxies that were missing them. Secondary components of double stars are no longer labelled until you're zoomed in enough to see them.

The telescope field of view indicator bullseye can now show cardinal direction (N/E/S/W) markers.

Added support for iOptron SmartStar, MiniTower, iEQ45, and Meade LS/LT mounts via SkyFi-USB. Added communication with Software Bisque Paramount via TheSkyX Server. Added ability to park SiTech mounts when disconnecting. Added separate telescope types for Orion SkyQuest XTg and Vixen Sphinx mounts.

Fixed various memory leaks and corruption problems. Fixed miscellaneous crashes and graphic rendering problems.

[mithrandir]

Chris I have to wait till I get home. Work blocks the iTunes store.

[gary]

Based on what we what we are seeing here during testing, we suspect that the
Sky Safari 1.1 Telescope->Connect functionality when using a USB Serial Adapter
has become broken.

We had been trying to characterize a few other telescope communication bugs
within Sky Safari at the time when we decided to upgrade to 1.1 this afternoon.

Since then Sky Safari sees the adapter but is unable to connect to.

Testing of the USB Serial Adapter directly through /dev shows that it is working lending
further credence to the speculation that the bug is within 1.1.

If anyone has loaded 1.1 they may wish to check whether the Telescope
communications functionality is still operative and please let us know
If there is a problem we can then report it.

Other users may decide to hold off with the upgrade.

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Fax +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[btschumy]

What Gary says is true. Apple has now started requiring "sandboxing" of all apps in the Mac App Store. This sandboxing has broken the ability to talk to the mount over the USB port. If you are using SkyFi you will *not* be affected. We are working with Apple to find a resolution to this and hope to have a new version out ASAP.

[Steffen]

What about the Sky Safari Pro 1.1.1 update? I'm currently running version 1.0.4 which was not bought from the App Store. Will v.1.1.1 retain USB telescope control?

Cheers
Steffen.

[gary]

Hi Steffen,

Bill and Tim at Southern Stars, the creators of Sky Safari, advise that the Pro
version is not affected as it sold by them directly rather than through Apple's
app store and does not have sandboxing.

On Nov 4 2011, Apple announced that as of 1 March 2012, all apps
submitted to the Apple Mac App Store must implement sandboxing.

See https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=11022011a

Sandboxing is a mechanism that restricts an app to a limited set of
"entitlements", such as read/write access to certain parts of the file
space or accessing the core location framework to determine the
machine's geographic location.

When one creates an app, one specifies a pointer to a profile which
contains a set of entitlement keys. These keys then should unlock the
necessary resources that the app will need.

Southern Stars advises that sandboxing was implemented for Sky Safari
Plus 1.1 for Mac OS X and one assumes also for the entry level version
of Sky Safari in preparation for the mandatory sandboxing requirement
Apple are enforcing for apps to be sold through their store.

Unfortunately in the case of Sky Safari 1.1 Plus for Mac OS X there is a yet to be
identified problem which Southern Stars will investigate that is preventing it from
operating correctly. Apart from not being able to access serial I/O via /dev, it appears
that it is being denied access to other parts of the file system by the sandbox
kernel extension.

Generally speaking, unfortunately when a resource denial occurs, apart from some
part of the application's functionality failing, the only way that the end user can
ascertain the nature of the problem is by trawling through the Mac OS X console.
This took us several hours of investigation to track down ourselves which we then
dutifully reported to the Southern Stars team.

The irony is of course that the Apple user interface, which they like to advertise
as "user friendly", when it comes to alerting a user of a sandboxing denial
event is somewhat lacking to say the least.

Tim at Southern Stars is currently on vacation but reports that they will defer
judgment until they hear back from Apple but if the issue cannot be resolved
then they will have no choice but to pull the app from the Apple store and
sell it direct as they do with the Pro version.

Indeed, not all developers it seems are happy with Apple's
sandboxing policy. One blog by a developer appears here -
http://lacquer.fi/pauli/blog/2011/11/why-the-mac-app-sandbox-makes-me-sad/

In the 1982 film "Tron", user's programs are frustrated that they
are denied access to the I/O Tower by the draconian Master Control
Program (MCP).
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIxwMQ_p3Ck

In an analogous fashion, Apple's "sandbox" kernel extension
is currently denying Sky Safari Plus access to /dev.

But as Bill communicated to us, you should be good to go with the sandbox-free Pro edition.

[Steffen]

Ok, thanks Gary.

BTW, I'm all for sandboxing, it's the only way to securely run user-space apps on a multi-user system. We've been trying to achieve a similar outcome for many years with chroot and RBAC (such as SELINUX) on Linux systems.

Cheers
Steffen.

[gary]

Hi Steffen,

As a bit of trivia, did you know that setuid was the only feature of the original
UNIX distributions that had a patent on it.
See -
http://www.google.com/patents/US4135240?printsec=abstract#v=onepa ge&q&f=falsehttp://www.google.com/patents/US4135240?printsec=abstract#v=onepa ge&q&f=false

It also certainly ended up being one of the most exploited features. :lol:

[mithrandir]

Steffen, it is trivial to have a secure multi-user *nix system. All you need is a totally paranoid security group and a product like eTrust.

Of course that also means no-one can go anything useful, but that is any security groups reason for existence.

[lacad01]

I noticed on the Telescope Support page that Skywatcher with SynScan controllers are supported - silly question, but will it also work with EqDirect? e.g

Mac<>USB-Serial<>EqDirect-adaptor<>Mount

Or can it only interface with the SynScan controller?
cheers

[lacad01]

Did a search through some SouthernSkies FAQ's and in fact interfacing has to be through the SynScan controller, not via EqDirect or anything like that.

[Peter S]

Hi all, After I bought SkySafari pro thru Apple(app download) and the skyseek WiFi unit from Bintel I unfortunately realised that yes you do need to go thru the Synscan hand control. I was hoping that it might be possible to manually pickup on an identified object and SSP would take over from there. As yet I have not used it.
I must say i'm a bit toey about powering it up, seen as the instruction say that if you get it wrong you could have some pain. I would love to hear from somebody who has had success with the setup and has a graphic of the connections( it looks a little strange to me one control going thru another....how do it give up control to SSP?
I'm still designing my adaptor plate to go between my NEQ6 and my TOA130. I also want to have another scope mounted on the side for tracking. I bought a cheap Chinese 80mm and a Lodestar to hang off the back. Happy sky's to all.:)