I started this project back in 2004 as I realize that more and more people get into astrophotography but most will go no further then framing nice pictures. So I thought that it will be good to have a simple to use tool to allow amateur astronomers to do plate-solving(detect and match your image against star catalogs), so they can explore and learn more about these marvelous images so I started to develop this project. Now after literally tens of thousands of development hours you can just load your astrophoto and in a few clicks learn almost everything is known about your image, what are the stars, galaxies, nebulas, radio sources, x-ray/gamma bursts, supernovas, extra solar planets or asteroids, comets and even artificial earth satellites passing through. Also, you can get more advanced information like various measurements available (including spectral) and links to articles/abstracts talking about objects and/in that area in the sky.
On top of that I added several tool to help amateur astronomer to better plan his observing session like an on click collection of environmental/weather data, instruments management/control and also an online collaboration interface to allow amateur astronomers to easily exchange/review the data.
Hi Larry,
I'd be very happy to help test your project!!!
I'm a beginner in astrophotography and would love to use the info and programs you have in the project.
What info do you need from me?
would you like me to contact you through your website?
Thanks
Bartman
Looks interesting. I've a rather large repository of asteroid/comet/variable star images from my astrometry/photometry work I can use to do some testing.
I haven’t tried on win7 – but for most functionality it should work – I reckon if there are problems these will be with the camera control same as in vista. However if it’s doesn’t work I will fix it and it will
Quote:
Originally Posted by higginsdj
Looks interesting. I've a rather large repository of asteroid/comet/variable star images from my astrometry/photometry work I can use to do some testing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by higginsdj
That will be great! I had some trouble in finding more images which also had precise information about the location or time on the web to better test this part.
I am sorry I got a bit delayed with the holidays season … I found little time to work on finishing the docs and fixing the memory leaking bugs. Meanwhile, I did manage to convert the project to Unicode (which caused an excess of 3000+ errors which I mostly fixed ) I am working on the user and testing guide/plan… where I must specify that some functionality has been little tested or at all and other half way implemented (well I got tons of ideas and little time). Once all this is done I will provide a download link for the test version.
There is something else I forgot to add… the project is written in c++/wxwidgets (cross platform gui library) and that means it can be compiled on other platforms such as linux/mac/etc. Most functionality will work except for the digital cameras interface (and for Mac I am not sure about the video interface either) which is for the moment is windows only. So if people are interested I will be looking in the future to release it for Linux or Mac osX as well.
And, also to clarify … my future plans with this project is to release it free and opensource (for windows, linux and perhaps macosx)… if all goes well, I mean if people show interest in it and it’s workable and from there I might be looking for sponsorship at some point to support a big central database though which amateur astronomers from all over the world can share image resolved with astrometry data etc.
I apologize for the delay as my life got slightly complicated lately. To make it worst my pc crashed last week - I think the cpu is screwed (it will power off as soon as it gets even a little load) and the only way around it was to under-clock it to 1ghz and 0.7v and now I will have to install everything.
You can download and test the very first pre-alpha release from here:
I know there are still bugs and room for of improvements, optimization, etc. "Unfortunately" I have built this application so big and I got so little time lately that I should probably focus on getting the core functionality working right and here any suggestions and ideas will really help.
It is compiled on XP. On windows 7 you might encounter crashes (mostly due to file/io permissions) – I will get them fixed as soon as I will get some time.
Try to start it again from the desktop... someone else had the same problem when the setup tried to start the application (something to do with vista/win7 permisions - I will figure it out once I will have a vista and 7 setup).
If not you might want to try to install/run the application as administrator - for now all the data is hold under the program files and vista/7 is very restrctive on that matter.
Try to start it again from the desktop... someone else had the same problem when the setup tried to start the application (something to do with vista/win7 permisions - I will figure it out once I will have a vista and 7 setup).
If not you might want to try to install/run the application as administrator - for now all the data is hold under the program files and vista/7 is very restrctive on that matter.
Larry
i still get the 'An unidentified program wants to access your computer' message, but it runs now. I guess Vista wants a bit more from the installation process.
The program did crash on occasion when using the HIP catalog. It successfully scanned after four attempts. No issues with the SAO catalog. I just installed SP3 (Running WinXP Media Edition), don't know if it's an issue with the version I have or not.
Results are per enclosed image. Have to admit, didn't think it would be quite so accurate or fast with a crowded field, but hey, I guess your algorithm is pretty solid. I'll try some more rugged tests tonight.
Well, my son was looking over my shoulder and said that he took a photo of the sky during his going away party back in January (we recently moved from Adelaide to Perth).
Any-hoo, using my wife's Sony a350, 18mm, f3.5, ISO1600, 30sec, my son managed to capture a good shot of a basketball hoop, a tree and some stars... and a lens artifact from a nearby street light.
This was solved by UniMap in just under 4 seconds using Rigel as a hint.
I would recommend a way to control the font size when exporting the image. I also noted that image resizing does not seem to work when using "File/Save Image" and resetting a new size.
I think "Beyond Impressed" may be a little of an understatement now... next stop Hubble images?
Anyone here willing to help me test my project?
i still get the 'An unidentified program wants to access your computer' message, but it runs now. I guess Vista wants a bit more from the installation process.
