Change Logs – Software Bisque

TheSky and TheSky Fusion change logs for each new release are listed below.

TheSky Change Log

The table below lists the improvements, changes and bug fixes to TheSky Professional , the Cameras+, Domes, and TPoint modules, as well as TheSky Serious and TheSky Imaging bundle.

Note that all updates are comprehensive and include all the improvements, changes and fixes since the original release. That means there’s no need to install an earlier release before installing the latest release.

Valued customers with an active subscription can download the latest TheSky release by logging in and and visiting My account, My Downloads page.

2024

TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13878 (Latest release)

TheSky for Windows July 12, 2024

Corrected the default URL for bright comets from MPC. Existing users must manually change this setting by editing the URL. To do so, click Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Minor Planet Center URLs, Bright Asteroids At Opposition, and enter the URL: https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/Ephemerides/Bright/2024/Soft06Bright.txt. (The year in the URL changed from 2013 to 2024).
Bug fix: A star’s Bayer designation (Greek character) is no longer displayed as a rectangle at some fields of view, and the Bayer/Flamsteed label no longer changes font size at different fields of view or at different positions on the Sky Chart, or when the Label window’s Common Star Names checkbox is turned on.
Removed the Reboot for Indexing button on the BisqueTCS, Utilities tab, Reboot/Update Firmware pane.
Windows OS is required to update the Bisque TCS firmware from TheSky.
Use https for Celestrak URLs.
Lower encoder i/o.
Bug fix: The hand paddle joystick declination rate is now correct.
MKS6000 firmware version 6.0.506 now distributed.
- The TCS LED emits green in the steady state (was white).
Added support for motor current sensing and limit to address the issue of excessive current during slews potentially causing the 6000 to reboot.
Bug fix: Corrected the m2 resolution for the ME Series 6 for Paramount ME with ring encoders.
Bisque TCS parameters text are formatted more consistently.
Added a function to measure current draw in two directions report the difference. MKS 6000 current-based motor index angle measurement.
- Report shows the index angles in use and current draw for each iteration.
Limit the MKS 6000 maximum speed to less than 2^31.
Slightly narrowed the minimum column width on the TCS parameters tree (from 150 to 140) so the parameters can be seen without scrolling.
Bug fix: When training PEC on a Paramount that has been upgraded with the MKS 6000, TheSky now recognizes the number of gear teeth.

TheSky ARM64 Update July 12, 2024

Download then run the installer script from the update archive to install the latest release.Raspberry Pi

Out of the box, this update supports the Debian Linux OS named “Bookworm” that ships with Raspberry Pi 5. For the Raspberry Pi 4 running Debian, additional libraries must be installed before TheSky will run. See this article for details about installing the required libraries.

Updated development framework to the latest release.
OpenGL is supported on compatible Linux ARM64 computers, including the Raspberry Pi 5.
The device status text messages now appears with the proper color.

TheSky macOS July 12, 2024

See above list of changes.

TheSky Linux x86_64 Full Installer November 18, 2024

See the above list of changes

TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13823

Latest Linux ARM64 Full Installer March 12, 2024

Fonts on installer window are now displayed correctly.
Restored missing plugins.

TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13821

Latest Linux ARM64 Full Installer March 01, 2024

Paramount ME default settings updated for the MKS 6000.

TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13811

Latest Linux x86_64 Full Installer February 28, 2024

Latest macOS Update February 26, 2024

Latest Windows Daily Build Installer February 24, 2024

Fixed a bug with the MKS 6000 WiSky settings where the TCP/IP port was not configured correctly, except when using Profile 1. Simply “Apply” any profile to obtain this fix and have TheSky clients be able to connect on port 2000. Note, this bug prevented TheSky clients from connecting to the MKS 6000 wirelessly.
Fix a bug where MKS 6000 WiSky Scan button would incorrectly return “No wireless networks found” on the first time Scan is pressed after rebooting the control system. The workaround in prior build is to press “Apply” first, then “Scan.” This in no way is a fix for wireless networks that are simply out of range which a Scan results in “No wireless networks found”.
Fixed a bug with the MKS 6000 WiSky settings where “Security mode” was not visible when “Network type” was “Infrastructure”. The work around in prior builds is to temporarily change the “Network type” to “Secure Ad-Hoc Creator” set “Security Mode” correctly, then change “Network type” back to “Infrastructure.”
Fixed a bug with the new “Interface” label on the Telescope tab (applies to MKS 6000 only) that could be wrong if one changed the port with an active connection. You can still browse serial port settings while there is an active connection, but just not make any changes.
Fixed a bug with the MKS 6000 WiSky settings where pressing “Reboot WiSky” would boot to profile 1, now it reboots to whatever is the active profile.
MKS 6000 WiSky settings, added the option “Secure 802.1X (MKS 6000 Only)” to “Security mode”, compatible connecting hardware required.

February 16, 2024 TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13787

Latest macOS Update Installer

This version is required to control all Paramount Series 6 mounts
macOS: Added Optec Pyxis rotator support for Silicon hardware.

Latest Windows Daily Build Installer

For TheSky Scripting, added a list of compatible program ids for TheSky64 for convenience when third party scriptors are deprecating TheSkyX 32 bit and instead targeting TheSky64.
The Bisque TCS window now reports the 6K motor and I/O firmware sooner than later.
Fixed a bug where the MKS 6000 would report the wrong temperature. When an earlier firmware version is detected, the Bisque TCS window displays a message how to update to the latest firmware.

January 26, 2024 TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13655

Latest Windows Daily Build Installer and Latest Linux x86_64 Full Installer

Fixed a bug under the following conditions… 1) Using an AO 2) and a rotator 3) have the rotator option on “Rotate 180 when the OTA side of pier changes” 4) after calibrating the AO on one side, slew to the opposite side and the AO tracking would not converge. The work around in prior builds is to recalibrate the AO on the other side or manually rotate AO calibration vectors 180 degrees when the GEM is the opposite flip state.
Added support for the MKS 6000.
Updated the latest UT1-UTC predictions.

November 29, 2023 TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13650

Latest macOS Update

Fixed a bug that caused TheSky to crash on Apple Silicon hardware when running on macOS Ventura (13) and earlier. When running TheSky natively on Apple Silicon hardware, this release is compatible with macOS Big Sur through Sonoma (OS version 11-14).
Added native Apple Silicon support for MallinCam cameras.

October 20, 2023 TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13638

Latest macOS Update

TheSky for macOS now natively supports Apple Silicon hardware. Read this blog for more information.
Updated ZWO X2 Camera Plugin
See additional changes below.

Latest Linux ARM64 Full Installer

Updated ZWO X2 Camera Plugin.
See additional changes below.

October 13, 2023 TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13638

Latest Windows Daily Build Installer and Latest Linux x86_64 Full Installer

This build incorporates the latest application framework development environment with long term support ensuring the future of TheSky.
When a photo is opened in the FITS Viewer (or after pressing the FITS Viewer forward or backward button) and the photo corresponds to a point in any open, historic Autoguiding Graphs or Train PEC window, a yellow cross appears on the graph point indicating which photo it corresponds to! This is an invaluable tool for evaluating autoguiding and tracking down anomalies. Prior builds already have the feature where you can double click on a graph point and the corresponding photo comes up in the FITS Viewer window, but this is the reverse direction. So now both ways work, Graph->Fits Viewer or Fits Viewer->Graph.
Apollo Duo equatorial and altazimuth models are now explicitly listed as selectable mounts.
Create Movie Tab is no longer listed on ARM64 builds (functionality not available).
Fixed a bug that prevented successful connection to Temma mounts on Linux.
For the TPoint module, there are now two “Add Recalibration Target” commands, one for portable use that adds 26 “optimal” recalibration targets, and one for permanent use that adds 18 “optimal” recalibration targets.
Add Recalibration Targets now adds 18 pointing samples at varying declinations. This is under TPoint module, APR, Create Pointing Targets tab, Commands, Add Recalibration Targets. A recalibration minimally requires fifteen pointing samples, this new command is much more complete with respect to a recalibration.
Fixed a bug where Add Recalibration Targets added 6 targets but only 5 were displayed. Also, right clicking to delete user defined targets on the same tab did not work (when Interactive grid was on, which is the default).
Updated recalibration note and added TPoint widget tool tips.
Attempt to clarify recalibration in the note on the Start Calibration Run window.
Added tool tips that describe “different strengths” of each type of calibration.
The TheSky 32 bit phase out warning would not obey the “no longer show” option, it does now.
Entering Full Screen mode now shows a reminder window to press ESC to exit. Updated user guide to revision 9.0 to include this change.
TheSky’s Meade mount driver now supports the x2 trackingRates() method.
Changed how the Meade mount driver checks for the short precision format to avoid potential communication failures with Meade mounts that use the long precision format by default.
Tested TheSky’s Meade mount driver version 1.3 against the latest Meade hand box firmware 43GJ on an Autostar ETX mount.
TheSky can now turn tracking off in Meade mounts.
Fixed a bug where the start date for daylight saving time was incorrect for New Zealand.
Fixed a bug where the camera autosave filename option “:B” for beyond the pole was always “No”.
Fixed a bug when a dome coupled to mount tracking initiated a dome slew, when aborted would cause the dome status to continually go from “Ready” to “Slewing” but the dome would not slew. The work around in prior builds is to disconnect/reconnect the dome.
Fixed a bug where the mount slew to button could incorrectly become enabled while a slew was in progress (pressing the mount slew button again was benign, resulting in “Mount command in progress error). This is much more convenient and a common occurrence for Direct Drive mounts that might take additional time to finish slewing when not yet properly tuned.
The “Long exposure Delay” group box on the Managing Observing List, window Advanced tab, is now hidden (a proposed feature which was not implemented).
Updated TheSky User Guide where appropriate.

August 22, 2023 Latest Windows and macOS TheSky Serious Astronomer edition version 10.5.0 Build 13618

Added a reminder message how to exit Full Screen Mode.
TheSky for macOS includes a universal bundle that supports both Intel and Silicon architectures.

August 08, 2023 TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13613

Latest Linux x86 Full Installer

Fixed a bug introduced in the prior release (13572) where the serial port selector did not list any appropriate serial ports under Linux.

June 13, 2023 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13592

Latest macOS Update and Linux Full Installer

Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build on macOS and Linux where opening a FITS file would give the error “Unrecognized or bad file format. Error = 701”. This would break dependent operations like camera control, Image Link, Automated Pointing Runs, etc., any operation that displayed FITS files.

June 9, 2023 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13572

Latest Windows Build

This build Incorporates the latest application framework development environment with long term support ensuring the future of TheSky while using of state of the art available technologies.
The serial port selector now only lists serial ports that are recognized and available to the computer. Also the list of available ports is updated dynamically as changes happen like when hardware is plugged in or turned on or vice-versa, without having to exit and re-enter the window.
The serial port selector now has a vertical scroll bar when needed.
Automated pointing runs (APR) now log the entire run status to a text file in the camera autosave subfolder, including the image link results, (along with the APR photos which have always been logged). The APR FITS photos have FITS key added to record the APR run number and the pointing sample number. This make is easier to correlate photos with pointing samples enhancing the ability to debug imaging system anomalies brought to light by TPoint.
In case this new logging feature causes APR issues, make a folder named “DisableAPRLogging” under the folder where TheSkyX.exe resides (even if running TheSky64.exe) to turn off this new logging feature. One must exit and restart TheSky for this key folder to take effect.
Photos acquired with TheSky now include an EXPDELAY FITS keyword recording the “Exposure Delay” on the camera tab. Some systems require a settling time after slewing which is typically and easily accomplished by setting an exposure delay which is now recorded.
Take two… Press control before pressing Image Link’s “Open FITS” to have any existing WCS ignored upon open, i.e. the sky display will not adjust. This is useful if you want to force Image Link to “redo” all calculations instead of using the historic Image Link results stored in a photo.
Incorporated version 4.2.0 of the cfitsio library.
TheSky no longer displays the error message: “CFITSIO Error: datatype conversion overflow. Error 33412.” message when opening FITS files that do not include the BSCALE keyword in the header. In earlier versions, TheSky’s default BSCALE value was 0, which caused this error to be displayed by the cfitsio library. TheSky’s default BSCALE value is now 1.0, which resolves this error.
Fixed a bug where the TPoint module check boxes Show pointing data, Automatically update model, Show pointing path, Graph unused samples could get out of sync when opening historic models.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 13479 where multiple aborts were required to abort a scripted SlewToAzAlt operation.
Train PEC now captures PEC index at mid exposure.
When using JPL Horizons and the ASTAO to track a satellite via ephemeris, fixed bug where declination sign was ignored.
Allow slashes in autosave “filenames”. Filenames is in quotes because allowing slashes for this field enables (dynamic) subfolder creation, so saved photos can be grouped by subfolder. The subfolder name is any available key abbreviation (exposure time, binning mode, filter name, image type, etc). For example all 1×1, 2×2, 3×3 photos could be saved into a corresponding subfolder “1×1”, “2×2”, “3×3”.
Allow configurable slew timeout for Automated Pointing Runs. The value can be changed by added this line into AppSetting.ini file: “APP_nSynchronousSlewTimeout= 180000” The units are milliseconds, the default is 180000 ms which is three minutes. This is rarely needed, one example might be when bootstrapping direct drive mounts that are not yet optimally tuned and slews don’t settle in certain areas of the sky.

March 3, 2023 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13507

Latest Windows, macOS, Linux AMD64 (March 8)

Fixed a bug where a FOVI “Linked to camera’s rotator” and with an offset guider, was draw incorrectly for a GEM (fork mounts were ok), also causing confusion with the rotator option “Rotate 180 degrees when the mount changes side of pier”. A crude work around in prior builds is to draw the guider as a ring, that is two concentric circles, indicating all possible positions of the guider and knowing one posture of the mount the guider rectangle is correct while the other side it is 180 degrees opposite.
Fixed a bug where right click on Gaia 3 data and choosing “More Data” would cause TheSky to crash.
Added an option to Meade mount driver to support the short coordinate format.
Fixed (what appeared as) a memory leak when quickly taking back to back photos with very large format cameras (like 10K x 9K) and short exposures (i.e using Take Series or continuous Focus Mode). The work around in prior builds is to NOT set auto contrast as Heuristic or if Heuristic is a must, set an enough of an exposure delay, giving the GUI enough time finish Heuristic calculations per photo.
Look for faster performance in image calibration routines (bias, dark, flat, etc.) when processing large format photos (and or during photo acquisition) on computers with more than two CPU cores.
Various improvements for SB direct drive mounts.
For the x2 driver model, released and documented the WeatherStationDataInterface the DomeHasHighlyRelaibleOpenCloseSensors interface.
By default, Image Link, “Open Fits” automatically utilizes any existing Image Link solution in the FITS header and places the photo correctly on the star chart. Most the time this is the desired behavior, avoiding the need to perform an Image Link again. In rare cases, you may not want this automatic behavior and instead desire to ignore any existing WCS solution so a fresh Image Link can be performed. With this build, if you hold down the control key before you press “Open FITS”, any existing WCS solution is ignored so you can perform a fresh Image Link. Again, you must hold down the control key before you press “Open FITS”, if you press control after “Open FITS”, that’s too late.

2022

November 11, 2022 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13479

Latest Windows, macOS, Linux AMD64, and Linux ARM64

TheSky now supports the Gaia DR3 dataset. Enjoy improved star positions and measurements based on these stars, search for Gaia DR3 stars using the 19-digit Gaia identification number, display over 1.8 billions stars using the optional Databases module and more.
Bug fix: Selecting a FOVI from the Star Search window no longer causes TheSky to crash.
Fixed a bug that caused TheSky to crash when clicking with the mouse to identify an object. To reproduce, use the mouse to identify an object, press ESC to clear the currently identified object, then click on another object.
Allow configuring the maximum number of satellites. Can be lowered on computers with low memory restrictions or increased on computers with more memory. On Windows, an increase is only recommended when running TheSky 64 bit, not TheSkyX 32 bit.
TheSky 64 bit now supports “MaxIm DL’s Camera” (just like TheSky 32). Beware the first few connection attempts might be problematic/cumbersome, but clear up after that. Verified it worked on two different computers.
Draw Jupiter’s great red spot more accurately. In addition, added a button under Display, Non-stellar Object Options, “Update Jupiter’s Great Red Spot” for future date accuracy.
New default behavior for Paramounts, scripted calls to sky6RASCOMTele::SlewToAzAlt(), now turns off tracking when the destination azimuth, altitude is reached. The work around in prior builds to achieve the same behavior is to slew a few times to the target in a loop and then turn off tracking. That code will still work with this new default behavior. For new builds wanting to return to the old behavior, make a folder named “EnableLegacySlewToAzAltBehavior” under the same folder where TheSky executable resides.
Fixed a bug on Linux where accessing TheSky User Guide from Help menu did not work. Note “atril” now needs installed.
Updated FOVI databases.

September 30, 2022 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13405 (Latest Windows and macOS release)

Updated QHYCCD camera and filter wheel driver to version 1.3 (macOS only).
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior release where the icons were missing on field of view indicators using a “Reference frame” other than “Center of Sky Chart”.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior release where slewing a Paramount always approached the target from the same direction, i.e. two additional, small slews at the end of a slew.
Renamed the menu command from “Clear” to “Clear Log” when right clicking an autoguiding graph plot area.
Fix a bug introduced in the prior build where opening an historic autoguiding log and pressing the “Clear Log” button or right click “Clear” would only produce a computer beep and not clear the graph. This action now clears the autoguiding graph window like builds before one prior build.
Fixed a bug under rare circumstances, where the file name displayed in the autoguiding graph window’s title was incorrect, behind by 1 with respect to the log sequence number in the file name.

September 02, 2022 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13395 (Latest Windows and macOS releases)

Bug fix: When autoguiding, the name of the auto guiding log file displayed in the title of the Autoguiding Graphs window was wrong, behind by one w/r/t the sequence number. For example, Imager.010.log was displayed, but the log file actually being written to disk was Imager.011.log. The title would get out of sync, especially when using the popup menu within the Autoguiding Graphs plot (right click) and choosing “Clear”. Work around for prior builds would be to use the “Clear Log” button on the Camera window instead and not the right click, “Clear”.
The autoguiding graphs now plot corrections sent to the mount by default.
Bug fix – The auto guiding graph, right click “Clear” would lose the name of the log in the window title.
The auto guiding graph, real-time settings are now displayed by default.
TPoint settings operations (New, Open, Save As, etc.) now easily allow a custom chosen folder and filename rather than always opening to the default folder “\Software Bisque\TheSky Professional Edition 64\TPoint\TPoint Settings.tptx”.
Bug fix: The Imaging Systems window icon for manufacturer-specific telescope windows no longer disappears after connecting to the mount.
Improved the behavior when overlaying DSS photos on the Sky Chart. The maximum size of DSS photos is 2 degrees. If the field of view of the Sky Chart is greater than 2 degrees, and the Overlay Photo button is pressed, a DSS photo is now displayed (rather than doing nothing).
Paramount owners, ProhibitTrackingBelowHorizon is now true (i.e. on) by default. If the paramount tracks below the horizon for a few moments, tracking is automatically turned off. Takes care of the case of slewing to an object in the western sky, forgetting and leaving it for hours, eventually the mount would track below the horizon. TheSky has to be running and connected to the mount in order for this option to work.
Fixed a bug where Closed Loop Slew (CLS) uses the scale from Image Link>Search tab>Image scale, but now uses scale from “Automated ImageLink Settings” as documented. A work around in prior builds is to use “Take and Image Link Photo” on the “Automated Pointing Calibration Run” window. This change may break some automation clients with extensive Image Link and CLS support.
Drastically improved the speed of building the FOVI telescope selections.
Added missing Celestron model mounts to list.
Bug fix: When using the telescope Move buttons, telescope cross hairs no longer jumps unexpectedly.
Updated Celestrak URL (from .com to .org) and added new categories.
iOptron mounts now properly report they are not slewing when they are actually slewing. When checking if mount is slewing, also check if mount is meridian flipping.
Updated FOVI equipment databases (added ASA and OGS telescopes and SBIG Aluma cameras).
Improved the persistent folder associated with FITS Viewer window especially when used with Image Link and acquiring photos with the camera.
Added a button “Open FITS from AutoSave Folder” on the camera tab next to the AutoSave button for convenience to open recently acquired photos. Also remember the forward back buttons on the FITS Viewer window.
Fix a bug where RA autoguiding corrections were being incorrectly scaled down by maximum move, especially noticeable at high declinations. The work around in prior builds is to increase aggressiveness.
iOptron version 2.5 command protocol bug fix: The Telescope window’s telescope status now shows the mount’s current tracking rate.
iOptron version 2.5 command protocol bug fix: The HC and Main firmware versions are displayed on the Telescope > Telescope Setup window upon connect.
iOptron version 2.5 command protocol attempted fix: Using the latest firmware with the latest version of TheSky, unable to reproduce the reported “Error 206: Command Failed” message on macOS or Windows.
Sky Commander version: Device version is now displayed correctly.
Automatically set iOptron mount’s location, date, and time when a link with TheSky is established.
Updated latest UT1-UTC predictions.
Changed the default value for the camera setting for “Reduction” to “None” (was “AutoDark”). Most modern cameras do not have physical shutters.
Fixed size of Telescope Rates drop-down menu wider on macOS.

May 20, 2022 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13339 (Latest Windows release)

Train PEC now requires a fresh autoguider calibration within one hour (was 10) of doing a run.
Tools, Run Java script now only accepts text and removes html markup.
Scripted ccdsoftCamera::CenterBrightestObject() now operational (was “Not Implemented”).
Updated TheSky User Guide.
Updated ICRS text file.
Updated camera FOVI database.
Train PEC now compatible with Taurus 500/600. In earlier builds, use the “PEC Parameters.txt” file convention with the following line PEC Parameters = 735 500 0.1102. For details on this convention, see the note at the bottom of www.bisque.com/train-pec
Fixed a bug where the polar alignment report was incorrect for a Taurus when the elevation adjustment required less than one turn. For example, if the polar should be raised 1.5 arc-minutes, old builds would report incorrectly report “Paramount Taurus: Raise the polar axis 44 degrees”, the new build reports “Paramount Taurus: Raise the polar axis 0.1 full turns (i.e. 0 full turns, plus 44 degrees).
Added several bullet points to the TPoint Polar Align Tab under “Important Information” to clarify to perform either tic based polar alignment or APA but not both at the same time.
Corrected the spelling of the word achieve in several places.
The “Advanced Camera user interface” checkbox is now turned on (set to True) by default. This option shows the Autoguide tab for the imager which is now more commonly used. Also, when training the Paramount’s periodic error (Train PEC button), using the imager as an autoguider is very convenient.
Fixed a broken external hyperlink in the rough polar alignment window to a video that demonstrates rough polar alignment.

March 4, 2022 – TheSky version 10.5.0 Build 13318 (Latest macOS release)

See release notes below for the macOS-specific changes in this release.

March 4, 2022 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13311

Updated all core system libraries used by TheSky (macOS and Windows).
LTI – Fix for “Autofocus Now” text bigger than the button.
Updated the X2 documentation to include a brief section on developing and distributing 64-bit drivers.
Updated Wolf-Rayet-stars SDB.
Updated FOVI database.
Updated TheSky User Guide.
Corrected LX200 get latitude receive length avoiding a lengthy read time.
Added/updated SDBs.
Updated the Paramount mount’s in the Telescope Setup window.
Advanced Satellite Tracking Module again supports Horizon JPL ephemeris (decimal and sexagesimal) tracking (accommodated their new format changes).
Tools > Verify TheSky Time working again. The prior web-based resource was no longer available.
macOS: Updated install script to include missing library that prevented ZWO and QHYCCD cameras from connecting.
Comet/Minor planets: Added links to asteroid download resources and MPC credit statement.
The web page URL for unusual minor planets on the Minor Planet Center changed. TheSky now uses this new URL.
Native A-P mount driver supports the Mach2GTO.
Latest changes for Bisque TCS direct drive mounts.

February 18, 2022 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13273 (Latest ARM64 Release)

Updated installer for ARM64 architectures.

This version is available to download for active subscribers of the following products:

TheSky Imaging edition for ARM64
TheSky Professional Edition and the Multi-OS module
Universal subscription
Paramount Software Suite

February 9, 2022 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13284 (Latest macOS Release)

macOS only: Corrected an error in the previous release that prevented successful installation of the core Sky Databases (SDBs).

January 26, 2022 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13264

Updated QHYCCD X2 Camera Plug In (macOS only).
Updated core Sky Databases (SDBs).
Updated miscellaneous optional Sky Databases (SDBs).

January 14, 2022 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13243 (Latest Windows Release)

Fixed a bug where the camera Focus Graphs incorrectly plotted two points per cycle when autoguiding and AutoDark turned on. In builds with this (display only) bug, the “workaround” is to mentally ignore the higher point of the pair.
LTI: Fix for missing sequence suffix on TheSky Fusion.
Distribute x2 Optec Gemini Focuser driver.
Allow Train PEC to be used by custom, Bisque TCS installations. See the special instructions in the “Train PEC” documentation.
Fixed a bug where focuser temperature compensation had stale temperature when “Temperature source” is set to “Paramount Mount”. A work around in prior builds is to keep the Bisque TCS window open on the Utilities tab with “Slew rate adjustment based on temperature” selected.
SatViaEphem is now compatible with new JPL Horizons ephemeris format.
When editing a Power Control circuit label, show the circuit number in the window title.
Added FocuserTraining scripting object. It may be necessary to delete your browser cache first.
For BoltwoodCloudSensor support, when attempting to connect, populate the Windows registry with the value name (and create the keys) so it is easy to subsequently add the path of the file share for the ClarityII data file to the Windows registry. This is a convenience when running more than one of TheSky in a single observatory, each wanting (shared) weather data, and the ClarityII software is not installed.
Updated TheSky’s core system libraries.
New feature: Create a dual field of view indicators that have both the imager and autoguider from two Image Links of the respective devices.
Drastic improvement when editing numeric values that have a suffix, mouse clicking to the right of the suffix, then pressing the backspace key, now jumps to the end of the numeric value, ready for edit. For example, the Exposure time field, “1.000 seconds,” mouse click in the edit control to the right of “seconds” and click backspace, and the cursor jumps to the end of the numeric value. In prior builds, the backspace did nothing.
Updated the X2 documentation on how to write an X2, 64 bit driver on Windows (all other supported operating are already 64 bit with no 32-bit counterpart, again, a Windows only consideration). It may be necessary to delete your browser cache.

2021

October 26, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13210

Fix a bug where starting a second instance of TheSky64.exe (Windows only) unnecessarily prompts for a serial number. Workaround in builds before this one: enter the serial number to run the second instance.
Fixed a bug where using a script to Image Link would not obey the image scale parameter. A workaround in prior builds is to set the Blind option and turn on Use All Sky Image Link for scripted Image Link checkbox on the All Sky tab of the Image Link window. A second workaround is to use the GUI to perform an Image Link with the same scale and subsequent, scripted Image Links succeed.
Fixed a bug where using a script to Image Link with the Use All Sky Image Link for scripted Image Link checkbox turned on, would not obey the parameter “unknownscale” and instead use whatever setting the GUI had.
Train PEC
- Fixed a bug where Train PEC doubled the PE if autoguider calibration was performed on the east. The workaround in prior builds is to perform autoguider calibration on the west.
- Train PEC now draws graphs using the same scale on the dependent y axis, making PE improvement more easily, visually apparent.
- Fixed a bug that produced before/after plots with obvious, incorrect straight line portions.
- Fixed a bug where Train PEC would compute the wrong ‘after curve’ if autoguider calibration binning was different from binning during acquisition.
- Fixed a bug where Train PEC would incorrectly fail with, “Error 573. Error during PEC fit.”
The TPoint [active/inactive] and [doing calibration/calibration locked] icons are now drawn in the bottom corners of the plot, former builds were covering the displayed magnitude of the hysteresis graph.
Added clarification on first parameter of TrackingRatesInterface.
In the imaging system toolbar, added an icon to telescope manufacturer-specific windows for better identification.
Added Starlight Xpress SX-M26 64-bit X2 Plug In for Windows.
Added Celestron Hyperstar and Fastar optical configurations.
Updated/corrected the FL in the telescope in database.
After changing the camera autosave path, the setting is immediately saved to permanent storage.

September 1, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13166

macOS: Fixed a bug that prevented successful connection to Starlight Xpress cameras (no longer reports Error 201).

August 16, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13152

macOS: ZWO X2 Camera Plug In updated to version 3.1.
macOS: Daily build installer for distributes several files that can be missing if an older full installer is used for the original installation:
- Moonlite focuser (Focuser Setup)
- Moonlite NightCrawler focuser (Focuser Setup)
- Optec focuser (Focuser Setup)
- Moonlite NightCrawler Rotator (Rotator Setup)

August 10, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13151

The latest macOS update reinstalls every Core SDB after reports that some are missing.

August 6, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13150

Fix a bug that causes autoguider calibration to fail, especially with large format cameras without shutters like some ZWO cameras.
Latest TheSky User Guide and app-based help.
Bug fix: The Input > Satellites > Show Satellites checkbox is now preserved after a restart (was always turned on).
Bug fixes for Mallincam USB camera support. Corrected issue with cooling disengaging between exposures.
Update available for macOS and Windows operating systems.

July 19, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13131

Fixed a bug where the sometimes TPoint inner RMS circle was not drawn on TheSky 32 bit, only. This was just a display bug, but could lead to confusion.
Train PEC
- Re-center reference star did not always work. The work around in prior builds was to center the reference star in the photo before performing Train PEC (right click star, choose “Center via Relays”).
- Added settling time after re-centering reference star.
- To help differentiate the “After PEC” case, use a different colored graph background.

July 14, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13125

Train PEC improvements/fixes
- Allow a greater number of periods.
- Opening an historical Train PEC run shows correct after status text when the “Before PEC” case is “No detectable periodic error”.
- Fix a bug of not being able to load historical runs when run number was less than 100.
- Provide access to the resultant PEC table opening a successful, historic Train PEC run by using the button “Copy PEC Table to clipboard” and subsequently pasting into the Bisque TCS window. Not possible on runs that encounter an error, except when the error cause by user abort and the abort is after at least 2 cycles for the “Before PEC” case and “Before PEC” is not a case of “No detectable periodic error”.
- When the “Before PEC” case has “No detectable periodic error”, clarify the summary text, namely “After PEC = Intentionally skipped, given above.”.
- Fixed a case of uploading the wrong PEC table for southern hemisphere, when camera rotated 90 degrees.
- The reference star is re-centered after uploading new PEC table to Paramount, verified and working ok.
Improved “Auto find guide star” button on Camera, Autoguide tab by ignoring hot pixels when finding local maximum.

June 18, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 13096

Fixed a bug introduced in the full installer, build 12978, where TheSky cannot find the All Sky Image Link database, i.e. after a fresh install.
No longer allow a value of zero for “Bad pointing sample criterion” under Preferences > Advanced.
Added Eagle 3 power control support (when run under that environment, Windows only).
New “Train PEC” button under the Bisque TCS window, Periodic Error tab, Compute PEC Curve sub tab. Instructions here.
Gaia support is available in TheSky on all platforms.
- TheSky full installers include a 4.6 GB Gaia DR2 subset with about 100 million stars that are evenly distributed to optimize successful astrometric solutions. Details here.
- The Gaia database is available on macOS and Windows full installers that are available for download for active subscribers, and distributed with the Paramount Software Suite thumb drive (build 12978).
- If you have an earlier version of TheSky without Gaia support, but don’t want to download and install TheSky latest full installer, first install the latest daily build, then download the Gaia DR2 subset plot file here. See the installation instructions on this page for details how to configure TheSky to use the Gaia catalog.
Fixed a crashing bug when communicating with some third party equipment over TCP/IP, typically after extended use.
When initiating a pointing run with an existing model, clarify the forth type, “Recalibrate portable telescope” in that it also applies to the scenario “Recalibrate after polar alignment adjustment”.
Display SDB Multipliers to 8 decimal places.
Fixed a bug of not moving to the desired filter wheel filter under the following circumstances (should be rare). Doing an APR (or Take Series), and aborting the APR (or Take Series), then changing the filter from the FilterWheel window or disconnecting and reconnecting the filter wheel, then restarting the APR (or Take Series), the APR (or Take Series) desired filter was not commanded.
On the Bisque TCS window, PEC tab, the Paste button now accepts the clipboard format from Excel when Excel is used to copy a PEC table to the clipboard. (To get a PEC table into Excel, press the Copy button from the PEC tab, paste into Excel, the two rows will be in one column, then use Data, Text to Columns. Edit as desired, copy to the clipboard from Excel, then Paste from the PEC tab.)
Autoguider graphs now automatically scale the dependent y axis based on data min/max.
Calibrating the autoguider with DirectGuide now has a minimum, built in “delay after correction” of a few seconds for more consistent and accurate results.
Fixed a bug where turning on TheSky64’s “Black Box Recorder” would cause TheSky to hang on a subsequent start (waiting for a 64 bit support process to start that was not distributed). The workaround for prior the prior build is to not turn on “Black Box Recorder” or edit “AppSettings.ini” and delete the line “APP_enumBlackBoxRecorder” if you do.
TheSky64 displays the correct name in the message (TheSky) when prompting to run a second copy.
Prompting to run a second instance and pressing cancel no longer (incorrectly) creates a corresponding folder for the second instance.
Corrected AZ time zones with -8 in locations database (requires you manually delete the current Locations.txt file under the Documents folder first).

March 18, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12978

New! Daily Build installer now updates TheSkyX Pro for Windows (32 bit) and installs the TheSky for Windows 64 bit. To run the 64-bit version of TheSky, double-click the new shortcut on your Desktop named TheSky Professional Edition 64. Please carefully read TheSky 64-bit Quick Start Guide that is displayed after TheSky 64 is launched.

Allow image scale to 3 decimals on the automated pointing run window.
Updated common non-stellar object labels database.

New! Daily Build installer now updates TheSkyX Pro for Windows (32 bit) and installs the TheSky for Windows 64 bit. To run the 64-bit version of TheSky, double-click the new shortcut on your Desktop named TheSky Professional Edition 64. Please carefully read TheSky 64-bit Quick Start Guide that is displayed after TheSky 64 is launched.

February 12, 2021 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12966

TheSky will no longer run on Windows 7. Background: Microsoft Windows 7 reached “end of life” on January 14, 2020. At that time, TheSky Version 10.5.0 for Windows minimum operating system requirement was changed to Windows 10. While TheSky was not officially supported, it was still able to run on Windows 7 with earlier builds. Changes in Build 12966 necessitate Windows 10.
LTI was resetting custom camera AutoSave filenames when it should really only do this when they are blank and unset. It now makes sure existing settings are not overwritten. In addition, the advanced file name feature of the AutoSave window remains off if LTI was launched and closed from within TheSkyX. This has also been corrected, and when launched from within TheSkyX Pro, all features remain available in the AutoSave window.
Enabled copying all-sky mosaic to the clipboard on non-Windows computers.
Fix a bug where an error was not displayed if there was an error after using the hardware settings window.
Allow an alternative location for the All Sky Image Link database file (10-180.allsky, ~2GB). Instead of <My Documents>\Software Bisque\TheSkyX Professional Edition\Astrometry, the new default location is <TheSky Installation Folder>\Resources\Professional\Core Databases\Astrometry. Warning, if you move 10-180.allsky to the default location, and the restore TheSky to a previous build, the database will not be found.
Fixed a bug with the mount Jog command that caused certain model mounts (those incapable of reporting rates) to unexpectedly continue to move after a jog.
Show the mount Jog motion control and or the Move motion control when the selected, underlining hardware is capable. In prior builds, only when hardware supported both were both controls shown, incorrectly treated as one.
The camera simulator can again retrieve DSS photos.
Updated FOVI detector database.
Updated FOVI telescope database.

2020

December 20, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12868 (Windows)

On December 14, 2020, the DSS website (stsci.edu) changed to require the https protocol. This build updates TheSky’s DSS operations accordingly so that DSS photos can again be downloaded from the web.
For power control, added Web Power Switch access control and locked state awareness/compatibility.
Fixed a bug where mouse clicking a celestial object (identifying) would sometime wrongly result in “Mouse click position” as the first of the list instead of identifying the desired, clicked object. Another symptom was that the identifying bullseye would not be centered on the desired, clicked object.
Fixed a bug where the mouse would sometimes get stuck dragging the star chart.
Fixed a bug where the mouse would sometimes get stuck with the grab hand or the cross cursor.
Fixed a bug under, Automated Pointing Calibration Run window, create pointing samples tab. The bug specifically, was a crash when opening a user supplied file of pointing samples (Commands, Open) when excessive in number.
- Fixed a bug loading a user supplied file of pointing samples (Commands, Open) would appear to do nothing. Now this command automatically turns off “Interactive grid” so that supplied samples are immediately imported.

December 8, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12856 (Windows)

Fixed a bug where @Focus2 would report a diverge error even though data formed a nice v-curve. Introduced in build 12827 (pretty sure). There is no workaround for broken builds.

December 7, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12846 (Linux x64)

The latest release for the Linux x86_64 architecture is now available for download. See the Windows changes below for a generic list of changes in this release.

December 3, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12846 (macOS)

This version includes the following macOS-specific changes:

Compatible with macOS version 11, Big Sur.
Includes Mallincam camera support.
Starlight Xpress is now shipping color cameras with four different Bayer matrix settings (RGGB, BGGR, GBRG, GRBG). As there is no way to query the camera for the appropriate setting, users can now select the right one.
Updated Canon DSLR X2 Camera Plug In.
Updated RoboFocus X2 Focuser Plug In.

December 2, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12846 (Windows)

Added a workaround to support the Web Power Switch Pro:
- Must turn on “Allow legacy plain text login methods” and “Allow legacy state-changing GET requests” under Setup > Access Settings.
- Must use this build 12846 or later to display circuit labels.
Released Mallincam camera support!

November 24, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12831

The web loggers power switch can now use any arbitrary port. The workaround the in the prior build was to use port 80.
Updated instructions associated with the “Help > Check for updates” menu command.

November 20, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12827

Support for power control hardware, includes native driver for digital loggers web power switch.
Updated TheSky scripting documentation to include the PowerControl object.
Distribute updated libRoboFocus2.dll.
Fixed an AtFocus3 crash fix when autodarks are turned on.
LTI Log file location by default is now in TheSkyX’s documents folder.
Added new QSI camera to detector list.
Fixed an APA polar align bug fix for southern hemisphere.
TPoint pointing graphic now shows resultant RMS in middle even when graphing unused samples.
Help > TPoint User Guide now opens TheSky User Guide PDF.
Minor tool tip tweak in Choose Mount.
Remove CEM120/CEM120EC from the list of natively supported iOptron mounts (TheSky presently supports Version 2.0-2.5 command protocol). Use the version 3 x2 plug in. This model requires iOptron Version 3.0 command protocol (it has the 8704+ V2 hand controller).
Prevent AutoLocFromZip from crashing when there is no TCP/IP stack.
TheSky Pro User Guide now includes TheSky LTI and TPoint User Guides. All 846 glorious pages! This single source file is distributed as a PDF, web-based help, and app-based help.
A single document is required for the pending rebranding ad: TheSky Telescope Edition, TheSky Imaging Edition and TheSky Observatory Edition, here we come!
Digital Setting Circles window now uses less screen real estate.
The user selected “Number format” (Sexigesimal or Decimal) is now persistent under Edit, Preferences.
For x2 LoggerInterface, increased logger history size limit (5x), great for complex problem tracking. Likely useful to other developers.

August 03, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12739

Updated the full installers for TheSky Imaging Edition and TheSky Pro for Linux ARM32 (Raspberry Pi) and x86_64 disk images (only)
- Added ATIK camera and filter wheel support.
- Added Mallincam support.
- Updated several plug-ins to correct bugs.

April 03, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12545

TheSky Imaging Edition released. The new edition includes all the features found in TheSkyX Professional Edition, the Camera Add On and the TPoint Add On.
TheSky Pro User Guide now includes TheSky LTI and TPoint User Guides.
Increased logger history size limit (5x) to help troubleshoot complex issues.
The user selected “Number format” (Sexigesimal or Decimal) is now persistent under Edit, Preferences.
Digital Setting Circles now uses less screen real estate.
Getting location from the computer’s IP functional with upgraded website.
Help > Check for Updates command functional with upgraded website.

February 14, 2020 – TheSky Version 10.5.0 Build 12503

Bug fix: Accurately display Moon occulting Mars Feb 18, 12:04 UTC for parts of North America. TheSky’s Moon coordinates now closely match JPL Horizons.
Bug fix: Camera tab is now the default again instead of focus tab.
Bug fix: TheSky’s Jog command now works as expected with a NexStar-compatible mounts.
QSI ui source folder corrected, and files are signed.
Bug fix: A Paramount GEM mount can track into limit region below the pole, and slew away without throwing an error message.
Updated ATIK FW distribution files in the DBI installer script
The x2 LoggerInterface now latches the time an entry is logged rather than when it displays on the Communications Log window.
TheSky supports iOptron version 2.51 command protocol.
Image Link now accepts image scale to three decimal places.
Updated FOVI database to include new ZWO ASI cameras.
Allow Optec focusers to have arbitrarily large backlash amounts (9999).
New 2.0 ATIK filterwheel using SDK support instead of old HID interface.
New DSL raw processing update.
macOS-specific changes:
- Updated Canon frameworks for additional camera support.
- Updated raw file decoding library.
- Corrected name of library in the text file so that the Starizona Microtouch
  focuser works.

2019

December 17, 2019 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 12473

Celestron driver Move To command now obeys selected slew speed.
Distribute new ATIK2 library.
The ATIK filter wheel X2 Plug In device list is now installed to the correct folder.
Added new ATIK plug-in w/out service based installer & new supporting .dylib in /Frameworks.
Tools, Lite Imaging Interface now showing.
The ATIK filter wheel X2 Plug In device list is now installed to the correct folder.
Minor edits to LTI user guide.

November 11, 2019 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 12439

Live Stacking improvements:
- Changed the on screen error message for when the initial frame is rejected for better clarity (not enough stars).
- Add an option to turn on/off on the fly bad frame rejection, and labled it R&D.
Image Link’s image scale now shows 4 significant figures (rather than 2).
If opening a FITS fails, provide a more detailed error message when possible.
Now distribute QHYCCD X2 Plug In
Starlight Instruments X2 Plug In focuser is now distributed.
Bug fix. Images made with color cameras that have the debayer pattern set to MONO (when binning, etc.) no longer attempt to display in color.
Fixed a memory leak when third party scripting applications extensively use the CCDSoft2XAdaptor.ccdsoft5Image object and its DataArray property to do image processing on acquired photos. A possible work around before this build, use the TheSkyX.ccdsoftImage object instead.
Comets with eccentricities greater than 2 (interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov)) can now be imported.
Fixed a bug where the mount corrections on the autoguider graph were drawn incorrectly when the autoguider camera was binning at something other than 1×1. Mount corrections are drawn optionally, in green. This was only a graphical display issue. The same issue applied to opening an historic autoguider log, corrected with this build as well.
Increase maximum ellipticity to 5.0 to support extra-solar objects.
Editing a comet or asteroid that has invalid data now displays an appropriate error message. Previously, TheSky emitted an audible “beep”.
Increased the maximum number of comets in the Observable Comets list to 1100.
Comet and minor planet orbital element data accepts more significant figures to match JPL/Horizon data’s precision.
Advanced preferences now allows non-https comet data URLs so that comets can be imported from astro.vanbuitenen.nl (http://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/cometels).
Comet Source hyper link on the Comets tab now reflects the appropriate URL in Advanced Preferences.
Added JPL/Horizon-specific abbreviations to the orbital element labels on the Comets tab for clarity.
Allow up to 16 decimal places for comet orbital elements as from the source.
The “Small Solar System Bodies” window now saves/restores the last tab in use.
Fix a small memory leak when manually editing comet/minor planets.
LTI
- Refine polar alignment wizard now has forced screen dimensions to make sure it is visible in FS/small screen scenarios.
- Fixed a bug where the image scale in TPoint autocalibration dialog was sometimes set to 0.01
New chart elements for telescope east/west limits so color can be changed and they can be toggled on/off.
Added Telescope Air Mass to status bar(s)
Bug fix: New Zealand Daylight Saving Time starts the last Sunday in September.
When run in a series, @focus3 will use the configured number of samples per focus position. Previously, it only took only one sample.
Corrected the time zone in selected cities in France to +1.

July 24, 2019 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 12304

Fixed an issue introduced in the prior build that caused @Focus3 and Live Stacking to crash.
Added tool tips to new histogram controls.

July 12, 2019 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 12289

Updated Messier overlays (case sensitive).
Updated mount list (iOptron V 2.0 clarification).
Latest FOVI databases.
Bug fix: When manually entering your location, the maximum value for longitude is limited to 180 degrees and 90 degrees for latitude.
Fixed a bug where all FITSViewer windows (Take Photo, DSS, Tools, Open FITS) could hang caused by a local printer driver problem.
LTI
- Always unpark 3rd party mounts on connect.
- LTI bug fix. At the end of a series, if the checkbox for terminate is on, no longer asks if you are sure you want to terminate during a series (because, the series is done of course).
- Park at end of series refactored. Now park and disconnect. This works around the fact that there is no unpark command in LTI, and if users park, don’t quit, and then want to continue, they previously would have to restart LTI. Now, they just reconnect and go (since reconnect checks for park and unparks now).
- Errors are not presented as sheets on macOS. Causes hang if another dialog is on top of LTI dialog.
- Right click context menu fixes for LTI, particular click and slew, or click and find.
- Rough Polar Alignment improvement. The previous query for alignment stars was so slow on the Raspberry Pi, as to be virtually unusable. A smaller database of bright stars is now queried for suitability, and the process is much faster and more usable.
- Wait for park to complete before disconnecting and terminating.
- Fixed an issue with slewing to coordinates when using a .fits file as a search object.
- If set to shutdown and park at the end of a series… DON’T if the user aborts manually.
- Fixed a rare, but possible focus problem in LTI series where subframe would be empty.
- LiveStack fits files are now FITS conformant.
FITSViewer is now compatible with color photos!
There is a new auto-contrast method!
Corrected the number of pixels in four SBIG detectors.
Clarified the message that appears when the home index offset calibration is successful.
Corrected the wording on the ‘Minimum Angle From Slit Edge’ dome option.
Acquired photo now have three new keywords from the FITS 4.0 specification.
OBSGEO-B (Observation latitude in degrees, North positive), OBSGEO-L (Observation longitude in degrees, East positive, and OBSGEO-H (elevation in meters). Existing fits keywords for these values (and their formats) untouched for historical compatibility.

April 26, 2019 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 12165

Distribute the latest QHY X2 Camera Plug In.
Improved Sky Chart performance when displaying a large number of asteroids (for example, about 800,000).
Paramount: Fixed a bug where pressing “Calibrate Joystick” button without a connection would produce a serial port communication error, now the error is “No connection”.
Paramount: Graphical flip HA at zero now matches Meridian graphic. Flip HA handle now drawn more closely to the Flip HA line.
Fixed a bug with setting the sidereal tracking rate when using the native iOptron mount support using the version 2.0 command set .
Bug fix: Eclipses are no longer missed when the Solar and Lunar Eclipse window first appears.
Selection of the Optec Pyxis FocusLynx has been corrected.
The Atmospheric Refraction Parameters window no longer allows entry of invalid values for the Tropospheric Lapse Rate.
LiveStack Improvements
- All settings are retained and restored when the LiveStack dialog is dismissed and brought up again, including calibration frame status. Red/Green indicator on calibration tab is an alert as to whether calibration frames have been selected. Current selected fits/in-memory state is now displayed on the calibration tab.
- Live stacking has a full screen mode now. No GUI or anything, once you get it going, you can switch to a full screen uncluttered view while it stacks. LTI and SkyX Pro both. Mouse controls work, but cursor is hidden. Press ESC to return to normal mode.
- Bad frame rejection, better rotation awareness.
LTI
- Auto-generated flat name is now placed in the correct label (was showing up as dark).
- Calibration frames that are inadvertently for files that are different sizes no longer results in a crash.
- Find and slew now has option to set target as the file prefix automatically.
- Fixed memory leak in calibration wizard.
- Suggested file name setup for saving master flats and darks.
- Fixed crashing bug when @focus3 was selected for autoguider, but no focuser had been selected for the autoguider. Now presents “No Device Selected”.
- Optimized query for rough polar alignment targets.
- Fixed memory leak in flat wizard.
- Hide Park commands if connected telescope does not have the park interface.
- Make meridian flip to only occur ONCE for take series target.
- Now brings up a prompt if a take series is running and continues or terminates gracefully.
- Error messages are prevented from showing up under the LTI window.
@Focus3
- Improved @Focus3’s focus determination logic under low signal conditions to ensure focus is actually achieve before reporting so.
- Added additional decimal place to focus exposure logs for very short exposures.
- @Focus3 can now acquire autodarks. Since @Focus3 can modify the exposure time unpredictably, this only works with cameras that have a shutter, and “Full Calibration” is not an option unless scale exposure times are used.

2018

December 07, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 12034

Make sure sun is above the horizon before issuing a “mount near sun” warning. If this a problem, the work around before this build is to disable “mount near sun warning” under Preferences.
Performance optimizations and bug fixes for live stacking.
Added the Optec Gen3 Rotator X2 Plug In to support Optec’s new model rotator.
Allow configuration of the largest TCP request that can be sent to TheSky (which is typically a script over a socket), under Preferences “TCP request maximum size”.
Improved hot pixel removal for color live stacking.

November 09, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11996

Fixed a bug where @Focus3 didn’t work in take series, introduced in the prior build. Improvements on @Focus3.
Fixed a bug that Live Stacking caused a crash. Live Stacking master darks work again.

November 02, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11981

Changed the URL used by the Verify TheSkyX Time tool to reflect the USNO’s change ca. 2018-06-29 to a secure site (from http to https). Note that the tool still fails due to the USNO having an invalid security certificate. UPDATE: The USNO security certificate was corrected ca. 2019-07-21, restoring functionality to the tool in this, and later builds.
Fixed a bug with very limited exposure. Introduced in prior build 11576, only with on axis encoder mounts, “Save all parameters to mount” would fail with 21013, ERR_MKS_COMM_BADVALCODE when using stable, popular firmware 5.32.8.
Allow setting take series repeat to zero again. Originally allowed in build 8896 (May 21, 2015), inadvertently taken away in build 11584 (June 2018).
New Advanced Preferences feature “Apply camera delay to dark and bias frames”; off by default.
Bug fix – Right click photo, Center Cursor Position via Relays now works with SBIG external CCD.
Fixed a bug where “Imaging system toolbar only shows selected hardware (less clutter)”=true might not have done its job if settings were from a very old build.
Fix rare crash when connecting a video camera.
Bug fix – Shorten the camera name when using SBIG with AO so the camera tab can be narrower.
New Advanced Preferences feature “Enable mount near sun warning.” and “Mount near Sun radius (degrees).” On by default.
Corrected repeated phrase in text used by the Accurate Polar Alignment Wizard.
Corrected the buttons offered on the PEC import error message box.
Correction: The Add/Edit Comet orbital element input window now refers to Time of Perihelion (T) instead of Element Epoch.
Expanded the Reverse X tool tip explanation.
ATIK X2 Plug In: No longer distribute v1.0 of the camera driver. Distribute v2.0 of the camera driver.
The maximum size of a detector (in pixels) has been increased to accommodate larger sensors (> 10K).
Bug fix: Coordinates entered by specifying “B1950.0” or “J2000.0” for the Equinox on the Navigate window are now precessed correctly. Work-around for older builds is to type the value without a letter prefix.
Added Live Stacking feature that is accessed by a new Live Stack button on the Camera window’s Take Photo tab.
LTI
- Fixed @focus3 control panel crash caused by switching to a camera with fewer bin modes than a previously selected camera.
- Bug fix: @focus3 control center allows manual focus movements for autoguider focuser. Also updated @focus3 state machine to use proper access to focuser pointer in case it is different from main imaging system pointer.
- Prevent autofocus run from being launched manually while an image is being taken/previewed.
- Substantial improvements to color auto-stretch & color tweaking controls throughout LTI and live stacking.
- Take series (LTI only) less CPU intensive.
- LTI allows turn on red screen (Mac, Win only, not Linux/PI).
- Many @Focus3 improvements.

June 12, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11587

Update scripting object to match documentation.

June 08, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11576

Fixed a bug where the Automated Image Link Settings “Exposure time” and “Binning” were forced to “4.0” and “2×2” on exit where as in prior builds they were correctly preserved.
Fixed a bug where the status text for the camera and autoguider wasn’t colored w/r/t connection state like all other hardware windows (i.e. green when connected, and red when not connected).
Bug fix: When the Sky Chart is being dragged by clicking and holding the left mouse button, simultaneously clicking the right mouse button no longer shows the context-sensitive pop-up menu.
Fixed two crashing bugs in LTI.
Many other LTI enhancements.

April 06, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11485

Updated FOVI databases.
Improved the common non-stellar object labels.
Improved and expanded the database of common non-stellar object names.
Fixed a bug where some searches for HD (Henry Draper) stars failed because they were not in Hip catalog.
Fixed a bug where the software limits were not updated (work around in prior version, click the OTA east west radio button).
Telescope jogs now maintain custom tracking rates.
Small jogs don’t clear the current object name.
Fixed a bug where the alt az reported by sky6RASComTele.GetAzAlt() was wrong.
Fixed a bug where the total RMS error displayed on the Autoguider Graphs window (right-most graph only) was computed incorrectly and arbitrarily high (a display only issue).
Bug fix: Running a (complex) database query could cause TheSky to crash.
@Focus3—improvements per related items listed under LTI, below.
LTI
- Update documentation.
- Scripted @focus3 no longer limits samples to 3, but is same as regular.
- Scripted @focus3 fixes w/regard to subframes.
- General fixes w/regard to subframes from @focus3 command center and LTI.
- Find sharpest region in FloatImage more robust. Autoadjusts correctly now for small or non-pow2 subframes.
- Fixed crashing bug on shutdown when “video mode” was on.
- Fixed image display screen jog controls using chart screens jog values.

January 29, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11360

Take 2 – Hopefully a fix to the ‘Windows 10 V1709 Update’ that prevented external programs from being able to use TheSky’s scriptable, COM objects.
- Windows 10 Users…
  - Reboot.
  - Install build 11360 or later.
  - Run TheSkyX as an administrator at least once (right click TheSkyX icon, choose “Run As Administrator”).

January 26, 2018 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11355

Hopefully a fix to the ‘Windows 10 V1709 Update’ that prevented external programs from being able to use TheSky’s scriptable, COM objects.
Try out the new @Focus3! See the new button under the Focus Tools tab of the Camera and Autoguider windows. Quick start documentation here!
Dozens of improvements/enhancements to LTI interface.
Fixed a bug in scripting where a script in a tight loop doing a Find() and checking an object azimuth/altitude didn’t change even when calling UpdateSolarSystem() in that same loop.
Corrected behavior when clicking between two “Find results” objects so that the angular separation is computed between those two objects, always.
Corrected spelling of Piazzi’s Flying Star in Star Labels Sky Database.
Removed unused “Optimize Telescope Position” option from Dome Preferences.
Updated Dome Preferences tool tips.
Updated Neptune and Uranus planet textures to correct their colors.
Fixed a bug where [sync back into existing model] didn’t work when a paramount was pointing on the east side of the meridian.
Allow a configurable number of decimal places on the camera exposure time under Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Camera.
The APA cancel message is now correctly formatted in HTML.
All MPC URLs now use the “https” protocol.
TheSky now more accurately computes stellar position for archeoastronomy.
Fixed a bug where the camera tab came up with the wrong tab by default.

November 03, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11177

Camera add on – For photos acquired by TheSky, the FITS header now contains the focuser temperature along with the focuser temperature source.
Numerous enhancements and fixes for LTI, especially w/r/t @Focus3.
Bug fix: Allow 90.00 degrees as a valid custom-horizon altitude when reading a saved .HRZ file.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 10554 where TheSky didn’t obey beyondThePole() returned by third party GEM mounts. The result was pointing with TPoint was only good on one side of the meridian. TPoint models for third party GEM mounts created with builds 10554 and less than this build need to be discarded and redone.
Press and hold down the CTRL+SHIFT keys when TheSkyX is launched to turn off Hardware Acceleration.
Added APA and RPA icons.
Updated APA wizard text to clarify that APA -OR- the TPoint Polar Alignment Report be used (not both) and other minor changes.
An error message is displayed when importing “bad” pointing data.
The URL for downloading comets and minor planets ‘By Name’ now uses https.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 10815 that caused the Park button to be disabled for some mount types.
Added an option for ascom telescopes to allow TheSky to handle slewing to a park position along with maintaining that position. By default these mounts slew themselves to a park position and maintain that position.
- Exit TheSky, edit Imaging System Profiles\ImagingSystem.ini (or your custom-named profile), find the entry below (or add it if absent), setting the value to 0 (zero) instead of

2017

10.5.0 Build 10554

10.5.0 Build 10516

10.5.0 Build 10486

November 03, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11177

Camera add on – For photos acquired by TheSky, the FITS header now contains the focuser temperature along with the focuser temperature source.
Numerous enhancements and fixes for LTI, especially w/r/t @Focus3.
Bug fix: Allow 90.00 degrees as a valid custom-horizon altitude when reading a saved .HRZ file.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 10554 where TheSky didn’t obey beyondThePole() returned by third party GEM mounts. The result was pointing with TPoint was only good on one side of the meridian. TPoint models for third party GEM mounts created with builds 10554 and less than this build need to be discarded and redone.
Press and hold down the CTRL+SHIFT keys when TheSkyX is launched to turn off Hardware Acceleration.
Added APA and RPA icons.
Updated APA wizard text to clarify that APA -OR- the TPoint Polar Alignment Report be used (not both) and other minor changes.
An error message is displayed when importing “bad” pointing data.
The URL for downloading comets and minor planets ‘By Name’ now uses https.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 10815 that caused the Park button to be disabled for some mount types.
Added an option for ascom telescopes to allow TheSky to handle slewing to a park position along with maintaining that position. By default these mounts slew themselves to a park position and maintain that position.
- Exit TheSky, edit Imaging System Profiles\ImagingSystem.ini (or your custom-named profile), find the entry below (or add it if absent), setting the value to 0 (zero) instead of 1 (one). (Step-by-step instructions here.)
  [X2ASCOMTELE0] DriverSlewsToParkPosition=0

September 01, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11086

Bug Fix: Cameras without coolers (DSLR’s mostly) don’t get hung up on connect. Temperature controls are hidden.
For fusion (dark) theme, fixed CSS syntax errors that prevented a number of custom tweaks.
The time portion of the LOCALTIM FITS header key now displays to the nearest millisecond and not dependent on system locale.
The resolution of the DATE-OBS FITS header key is no longer dependent on the star chart frame rate.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where connecting to a Paramount would cause the rotator to move to position angle zero.
Updated FOVI databases.
Fixed a new line issue in Locations.txt.
Minor changes related to measuring the motor index angles (default values, text messages).
Installer always updates Workbench scripts now.
The rectangle that highlights text (in menus, text boxes, etc.) is more subdued, and the text in the rectangle is brighter to improve visibility.

August 04, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 11012

When acquiring SBIG photos, the FITS header now contains the SBIG Egain value.
Chart status can be docked on bottom and top of the main window.
LTI enhancements:
- Changed inspection cursor readout to be next to cursor. Text moves around if you get too close to and edge.
- Miscellaneous spelling and spacing issues in GUI
- Fixed inability to select a target on take series tab.
- Better /fs (full screen) behavior on macOS
- Cross hairs can now be displayed on images.
- Zoom box contains scale legend 1:1, 2:1, etc.
- Zoom box contains a thumbnail of the entire image to make it clear what it’s purpose is.
- Fixed error where some wizards would fire twice.
- New Wizard to set parking position.
- Option to shutdown and park at the end of take series.
- Wizard prompts on macOS now use “sheets”. Windows prompts have caption set.
- Added icons to toolbox.
- Changed Toolbox and tab styles so it’s easier to see which one is selected.
- Put set location in both startup wizard and utilities. User warned that location cannot be changed when connected to a mount.
- Re-arranged utilities and wizards. One time nightly, and one time initialization separated out.
- Removed Advanced Preferences from utilities. Java Script is next… don’t count on it in the next update.
- Don’t show FWHM if N/A or over 10 pixels on focus (probably not a star field).
- Greyed out disabled Toolbox steps.
- @Focus3 creates subfolders exactly like @focus2 does. Both the focus images and a log file are provided.
- Toolboxes are frozen during take series.
- Added Training mode to Utilities, uses DSS data for camera simulator.
- On take series, if the target is anything other than “Current”, it appends a :t_ to the light frame, prepending the target name to the beginning of the file name.
- Removed advanced file naming options, and the following schema is now always enforced:
  - – Always autosave
  - – Always use date-based subfolders<
    – _:f_:b_:e_:c_
    BIAS_:b_:e_:c_
    DARK_:b_:e_:c_
    FLAT_:f_:b_:e_:c_
  - WARNING: If you run LTI, it will also replace your current settings with these values.
- LTI Closed Loop Slews (Verify Photographically) now have their own folder for output files.
- Accuracy of CLS improved (LTI version only – Pro was fine already, just did not provide GUI feedback)
- All other tabs are disabled during autofocus.
- Completion of the focuser characterization wizard now takes you to focusing toolbox instead of useless popup message.
- Source Extractor is used to determine FWHM only on focus confirmation image, or manual focus images. FWHM is not used for @focus3, but users want so see the resulting value (gives you an idea of the seeing conditions).
- Focuser movements can now be aborted by clicking on the button displaying the focus motion.
- Focus position display is now a button. Clicking the button turns it into an edit control (when the focus is not moving) where you can manually type in a specific focuser position. Clicking anywhere but “Go” aborts the edit. Clicking “Go” moves the focuser to the location typed in, and returns the GUI to normal.
- @Focus3 now has a graphical overlay that is updated during the focus run, and will display the final focus curve and best focus position.
  Take Series was not properly using extended camera mode, this was fixed.
- Focuser backlash is now just always applied, there is no checkbox to confuse people. It does no harm if not needed.
- Hardware tab has been modified significantly. You can now click the device name to bring up the dialog for device specific settings.
- Filter names and offsets has been moved to the setup toolbox.
- Persistent focuser characterization settings have been moved, and will need to be reset with this build. They should not move again after this update.
- There is a new collimation tool under utilities that runs full screen. This is preliminary release, please try it and let us know what you think or need for collimation needs. The collimation tool does not save any photos/FITS files, except if you launch @focus3 from this tool. There are three different ways to display your images, and you can save and restore focuser positions. If you want to adjust the screen stretch do that in inspection mode before going to crosshairs/circle or the four corners mode.

June 20, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10857

Take 2 – Fixed a bug introduced in build 10815 where Accurate Polar Alignment did not work (i.e. ME and MA were not adjusted after pressing APA “Finish”).

June 20, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10853

Fixed a bug introduced in build 10815 where Accurate Polar Alignment did not work (i.e. ME and MA were not adjusted after pressing APA “Finish”).
For a clearer convention, the Daily Build Installer names the backup folder based on the build number of TheSkyX being backed up, rather than using the “Pre Backup” naming convention that was previously used.
Fixed a bug in the FITS Viewer window that occasionally prevented the crosshairs from appearing when the ‘Crosshairs’ checkbox is turned on.
For cameras that support the LoggerInterface, there is now a “Show Log” button on the camera tab.

June 15, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10837

Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build that prevented downloading comets and asteroids by name.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build that prevented enabling on axis absolute encoders on Paramounts equipped with such (error was 20200).

June 08, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10815

Improved support for on axis absolute encoder mounts.
Added current Paramount models to the built-in focuser list.
Guarantee @Focus2 moves the focuser in one direction and one direction only for final moves, creating a natural anti-backlash measure.
Fixed a bug where changing the time skip increment through a script didn’t actually apply on subsequent scripted time skip operations.
Fixed a bug beginning after build 9334 where the time skip tool bar “Use computer’s clock” button wouldn’t stay down when pressed.
Fixed a bug where methods RADecToXY() and XYToRADec() were not accessible from high level scripting languages.
The ccdsoftImage object now offers the X,Y pixel coordinates relative to image where the user last pressed the left mouse button and or where the user last double clicked the left mouse button.
Fixed a bug where the FITS header did not have the most up-to-date focus position only after the first filter wheel change and filter, focus offsets were set. This was a book keeping error as the focuser actually moved.
Fixed a bug where an SBIG autoguider, configured to use the “External CCD”, of an SBIG STXL camera, incorrectly recorded the pixel sizes in the FITS header as the size of the imager pixel sizes.
Importing minor planets is now more flexible.
Minor change to Non-Stellar Object Options windows descriptions, and added tool tips that describe each control.
When the script text box has the focus, pressing the F5 will “Run” the script.
Tweaks to @Focus2 Settings window.
Bug fix: Vixen firmware version may have shown incorrect characters.
Bug fix: On Windows, Sky Chart lines now honor the color
Preference: Do not automatically turn off constellation lines and other chart elements when turning on the Show Daylight option.
TPoint scatter diagram center circle on orthographic graphs now matches dark theme.
Bug fix: Connecting to and controlling a Vixen Star Book on the Mac no longer crashes.
Fixed a Windows-specific Night Vision Mode bug that prevented the histogram from displaying correctly.
Minor improvements to Night Vision Mode theme.
Under Edit, Preferences, there is a new option “Imaging system toolbar only shows selected hardware”. This causes the imaging system toolbar to only show buttons associated with hardware which has a selection, and buttons associated with hardware that has no selection are not displayed. This is cleaner and improves navigation while observing, especially late at night. It also can free up some screen real estate when running on smaller monitors.
Improved the orientation of a several photos in the Messier and Deep Sky photo overlays.
While scrolling a window with the mouse wheel, input controls that happen to come under the mouse cursor no longer “steal” the input focus (and expectantly begin to have their value changed in response to the mouse wheel).
The QSI X2 Camera and Filter Wheel Plug In is now distributed on Windows.
Change: the “Direct Markers” label is renamed to “Horizon Cardinal Labels (N,E,S,W)”.
Bug fix: When turning in Night Vision Mode, the width of columns in tree lists is maintained (Windows only).
Improved the description of the recalibration requirements after completing an Accurate Polar Alignment.
Updated MKS 5000 USB driver so that the Software Bisque MKS 5000 COM port description always appears on Windows 10’s Hardware Manager.
Attempted to improve consistency of the control’s layout between normal and Night Vision Mode themes (Windows only).
Expanded list of common names.
Canon camera plug in now uses the latest Canon SDK.

March 1, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10569

Fixed a bug introduced in build 10351 causing some windows to not have a minimize and or maximize button.
Bug fix: NiteCrawler rotator X2 Plug In now saved to correct folder (was Focuser, now Rotator).
Updated Asterism names.
Asterism names are again searchable.
When acquiring photos from SBIG cameras, the INSTRUME keyword is now set to the specific camera model. Prior to this build, it held the name of the camera selected in TheSky.
Photos acquired with TheSky include FITS key for latitude, longitude, and local sidereal time with or without a mount connection (in prior builds these keys were only added when connected to a mount).
Fixed a bug when configuring the Paramount WiSky. Prior to this build, when the “Network type” was changed, the Apply button had to be pressed twice.
Fixed a bug in a recent prior build where slewing a fork Paramount with a TPoint model was off. A workaround in that build is to set the fork flip hour angle to -8 (default is 8).
Fixed bug where database queries selecting a specific constellation did not work.
Fixed bugs when deleting items in Observing List and in the Observing Log.
The satellite tracking window again has tracking offset controls (incorrectly removed since build 10167).
Fixed a bug introduced in build 10486 where the park position for a Paramount would change over time. Please note, this build will ignore any existing park position thus requires setting a desired park position again.
Updated SDK, and QHY X2 Plug In. On Windows, make sure to install the Windows QHY camera driver.
Gemini mounts can now be slewed to the home position by clicking the Slew To Home Position button on the Miscellaneous tab of the Gemini window.
Improved Paramount park abilities. Can now consistency park on the meridian due south/due north with counterweight shaft exactly horizontal, or with the counterweights above horizontal or very near the pole, all with either GEM posture, beyond-the-pole or not. In prior builds, Park had to be away from the meridian, not beyond the meridian in the flip region, and away from the pole. Warning any existing park position is cleared and this build requires setting a new park position.
TheSkyX queries ascom CanSetRightAscensionRate and CanSetDeclinationRate properties (was querying CanSetTrackRates) to determine if a mount can set tracking rates.
Added missing word “to” to the Find Home command.
After issuing the Slew To command (:MS#) to the Gemini controller, wait 1.5 seconds for a response.
Fixed crashing bug for large DSLR images with odd numbers of columns.
Image Link Open Photo will now instantly overlay the photo on the star chart provided the photo has already been Image Linked with this build or later.
Image link report now includes “Mirror Image: No” or “Mirror Image: Yes”.
Implemented less restrictive iOptron mount version checking so that pre-version 2 firmware versions can be controlled.
Show the Sky Chart’s RA/Dec and field width on the DSS window with the window is first displayed.
Updated DSS window tool tips.
Added 2000.0 to the RA/Dec on the DSS photo’s coordinates.
Fixed a bug where Image Link run from a script would sometimes leave the photo overlaid on the star chart.
The maximum size of DSS photos downloaded from the web is 120 arc minutes (was 60 arc minutes).
The angular size of the major axis of an Area of Interest My Chart Element is now correct (was 1/2 major axis).
Serial ports now properly enumerated on Linux (including Pi).
Removed non-HTML compatible characters.
Fix for Prolific USB selection not being persistent on Linux/Pi.
TheSkyX’s status text can be customized (colors, font, font size, etc.) with an external style sheet. Three separate style sheets are available: Night Vision, Dark and Light Themes.
Changed references to Java Script to JavaScript.
Bug fix: The Import button on the Large Asteroid Database is no longer disabled when an optimized version of the imported database is present. DNP: Bug report: clicking the Import button twice hides the asteroids on the Sky Chart, which the above change attempted, failingly, to correct.
Bug fix: Prevent the width of the first column on the Acquire Pointing Samples table from getting too small when turning in Night Vision Mode, then switching between tabs.
Fixed a bug where hand editing TPoint model terms on/off and the state of the checkbox was also being applied to the pointing data list.
Fixed a bug where attempting to center a star on a FITS photo acquired by a *standalone autoguider* by right clicking and choosing “Center cursor position” would incorrectly give error 565 “Autoguider calibration is required. The Declination at calibration is unknown, but declination is now known.” even though the autoguider was indeed calibrated.
Fixed a bug in TheSky that would sometimes incorrectly reject a pointing sample (on the rare occasion when the sample was exactly on a degree or hour and had zero minutes and zero seconds).
Added NightCrawler and OS focuser and rotator X2 Plug Ins.
Fixed a bug where Take Series Dithering would not move in declination when the autoguider was been configured to not reverse directions in declination. IOW, dithering moves happen in all directions regardless of the user’s configured “Relay enabled” settings.
The legacy MKS3000 can again be used with TheSkyX Pro. TheSkyX Pro builds 10229 through 10305 could not be used with the legacy MKS3000; the symptoms in builds 10229 to 10305 “Restore Defaults” failed and starting a new TPoint model would corrupt most MKS parameters. The work around before this build is to use build 9334 or earlier.
Turn off accurate shutter timing if specialized hardware is not present.
Updated ICRSData text file
Fixed bug where Hip extended labels required computing proper motion.

February 24, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10554

Fixed a bug introduced in build 10351 causing some windows to not have a minimize and or maximize button.
Bug fix: NiteCrawler rotator X2 Plug In now saved to correct folder (was Focuser, now Rotator).
Updated Asterism names.
Asterism names are again searchable.
When acquiring photos from SBIG cameras, the INSTRUME keyword is now set to the specific camera model. Prior to this build, it held the name of the camera selected in TheSky.
Photos acquired with TheSky include FITS key for latitude, longitude, and local sidereal time with or without a mount connection (in prior builds these keys were only added when connected to a mount).
Fixed a bug when configuring the Paramount WiSky. Prior to this build, when the “Network type” was changed, the Apply button had to be pressed twice.
Fixed a bug in a recent prior build where slewing a fork Paramount with a TPoint model was off. A workaround in that build is to set the fork flip hour angle to -8 (default is 8).
Fixed bug where database queries selecting a specific constellation did not work.
Fixed bugs when deleting items in Observing List and in the Observing Log.
The satellite tracking window again has tracking offset controls (incorrectly removed since build 10167).

February 9, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10516

Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where the park position for a Paramount would change over time. Please note, this build will ignore any existing park position thus requires setting a desired park position again.
Updated SDK, and QHY X2 Plug In. On Windows, make sure to install the Windows QHY camera driver.

February 2, 2017 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10486

Gemini mounts can now be slewed to the home position by clicking the Slew To Home Position button on the Miscellaneous tab of the Gemini window.
Improved Paramount park abilities. Can now consistency park on the meridian due south/due north with counterweight shaft exactly horizontal, or with the counterweights above horizontal or very near the pole, all with either GEM posture, beyond-the-pole or not. In prior builds, Park had to be away from the meridian, not beyond the meridian in the flip region, and away from the pole. Warning any existing park position is cleared and this build requires setting a new park position.
TheSkyX queries ascom CanSetRightAscensionRate and CanSetDeclinationRate properties (was querying CanSetTrackRates) to determine if a mount can set tracking rates.
Added missing word “to” to the Find Home command.
After issuing the Slew To command (:MS#) to the Gemini controller, wait 1.5 seconds for a response.
Fixed crashing bug for large DSLR images with odd numbers of columns.
Image Link Open Photo will now instantly overlay the photo on the star chart provided the photo has already been Image Linked with this build or later.
Image link report now includes “Mirror Image: No” or “Mirror Image: Yes”.
Implemented less restrictive iOptron mount version checking so that pre-version 2 firmware versions can be controlled.
Show the Sky Chart’s RA/Dec and field width on the DSS window with the window is first displayed.
Updated DSS window tool tips.
Added 2000.0 to the RA/Dec on the DSS photo’s coordinates.
Fixed a bug where Image Link run from a script would sometimes leave the photo overlaid on the star chart.
The maximum size of DSS photos downloaded from the web is 120 arc minutes (was 60 arc minutes).
The angular size of the major axis of an Area of Interest My Chart Element is now correct (was 1/2 major axis).
Serial ports now properly enumerated on Linux (including Pi).
Removed non-HTML compatible characters.
Fix for Prolific USB selection not being persistent on Linux/Pi.
TheSkyX’s status text can be customized (colors, font, font size, etc.) with an external style sheet. Three separate style sheets are available: Night Vision, Dark and Light Themes.
Changed references to Java Script to JavaScript.
Bug fix: The Import button on the Large Asteroid Database is no longer disabled when an optimized version of the imported database is present. DNP: Bug report: clicking the Import button twice hides the asteroids on the Sky Chart, which the above change attempted, failingly, to correct.
Bug fix: Prevent the width of the first column on the Acquire Pointing Samples table from getting too small when turning in Night Vision Mode, then switching between tabs.
Fixed a bug where hand editing TPoint model terms on/off and the state of the checkbox was also being applied to the pointing data list.
Fixed a bug where attempting to center a star on a FITS photo acquired by a *standalone autoguider* by right clicking and choosing “Center cursor position” would incorrectly give error 565 “Autoguider calibration is required. The Declination at calibration is unknown, but declination is now known.” even though the autoguider was indeed calibrated.
Fixed a bug in TheSky that would sometimes incorrectly reject a pointing sample (on the rare occasion when the sample was exactly on a degree or hour and had zero minutes and zero seconds).
Added NightCrawler and OS focuser and rotator X2 Plug Ins.
Fixed a bug where Take Series Dithering would not move in declination when the autoguider was been configured to not reverse directions in declination. IOW, dithering moves happen in all directions regardless of the user’s configured “Relay enabled” settings.
The legacy MKS3000 can again be used with TheSkyX. TheSkyX builds 10229 through 10305 could not be used with the legacy MKS3000; the symptoms in builds 10229 to 10305 “Restore Defaults” failed and starting a new TPoint model would corrupt most MKS parameters. The workaround before this build is to use build 9334 or earlier. Paramount MEs using MKS 4000 should also restore the control system to default settings to avoid potentially unexpected behavior using this and later versions of TheSkyX Pro.
Turn off accurate shutter timing if specialized hardware is not present.
Updated ICRS Data text file.
Fixed bug where Hip extended labels required computing proper motion.

2016

10.5.0 Build 10305

10.5.0 Build 10229

November 17, 2016 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10305

Camera temperature included in customized AutoSave filename is now formatted with 2 decimal places (was 4).
The Autoguider Graphs window grid now draws the x zero and y zero axes with a black line.
Slew prior stores the prior telescope coords in addition to the prior target name – works even in the case slew to M1, tweak city, slew off to focus, now Slew Prior back to M1 – the FK_OBJECTN is “M1” (i.e. correct target name) and all the mount tweaks are included (just what the user expects). The prior commit, did a click find on prior tele coords, but that didn’t always “find” the correct prior target name, especially if there were small tweaks after slew.
Warn if a TPoint recal is attempted w/o having first performed Super Model.
Mac only. Zooming with trackpad is improved on both sky chart and fits viewer.
Removed unrelated and unnecessary controls from the “Atmosphere Refraction Parameters” window causing confusion.
When the Dark Theme is enabled, the radio button, checkbox, and tool button controls’ disabled state is now more discernible.
Proper motion vectors are now red, not black.
Bug fix: MPC large database asteroids can be successfully imported.
Increased the maximum semi-major axis for an asteroid to 5000 AU.
Added tooltip text to Imaging System Windows.
Corrected spelling errors in Accurate Polar Alignment procedure and elsewhere.
Fixed a bug in the Autoguider graphs where the most recent mount correction was not graphed until the next cycle.
Only show the Accurate Shutter Time checkbox when appropriate.
Fixed a bug on Windows where TheSky’s dark theme was partially “undone”. Two common causes include making a remote desktop connection onto a computer where TheSky is already running or when a computer awakes from being in sleep mode with TheSky running.
Fixed a bug where Automated Pointing Run would encountering an persistent error doing a target and would not allow an abort.
Autoguide speed (pix/sec) now shown to 3 decimals (was 2). Primarily matters when hand editing calibration results.
The Flip Mount Now button now appears on the Telescope Tab when connected to a Paramount.
When tracking satellites, now that the satellite name makes it all the way to the FITS FK_OBJECT like “IRIDIUM 8 (+) #24792U”, if someone also as object name as as part of the camera autosave file name, CFitsIO has optional file name parameters to do things indicated by square brackets (()) in the file name – so we take these out of the autosave filename.

September 23, 2016 – TheSkyX Version 10.5.0 Build 10229

This release (as of daily build version 10.5.0.9785) requires Windows 7 or later. Windows XP is no longer supported going forward.
Fixed a bug where the white text on the PEC graph of the PEC tab of the Bisque TCS window was difficult to read. The text is now black.
Fixed a bug where camera drivers using AddFITSKeyInterface were not able to add double values (int and string were ok).
Fixed: Telescope Move/Jog buttons are now the same size.
Fixed: Navigate buttons are sized correctly.
Added one more significant figure to RA in Find reports.
Fixed a bug when printing a FITS file would crash using Tools, Open Fits and subsequently Photo, Print.
Fix: Control text on the Image Calibration Library is no longer clipped on the Mac.
Added a “Flip Mount Now” button to the telescope tab. When pointing in the flip region, pressing this button will cause the mount to slew to the same target but flip the OTA to the other side of the meridian.
Fixed a bug when running @Focus2 on the Autoguider the Focus Graphs Window incorrectly displayed the Focus V-Curve data (using a constant focus position). This was a display bug only, @Focus ran normally.
Updated the default URL that is used to retrieve asteroids and comets by name (data source changed).
Fixed a bug where the Filter Names Setup window didn’t label the columns correctly. The work around in prior builds is to know the columns are “Filter Number” “Filter Name” “Focus Offset”.
The maximum value of an asteroid’s semi-major axis has been increased to accommodate the newly discovered asteroid 2014 EF72.
An error message is displayed when semi-major axis and other orbital parameters are out of range as received from the data source (The Minor Planet Center’s By Name service presently erroneously returns the text: ******** (8 asterisks) for 2014 EF72’s semi-major axis.)
Distribute the latest ZWO camera and filter wheel X2 Plug Ins.
Fix for when a Retina Mac has a 2nd display, and the earth view windows are dragged from the main retina display to the non-retina display.
Fixed a bug where the “Reboot WiSky” button did nothing.
When downloading a DSS photo and if the download happens to time out, ERR_DSSRXTIMEOUT is now returned.
For Paramounts, implement ‘Sync mount into existing model’ as an single, instant operation. In the two prior builds, 10031 and 10133, ‘Sync mount into existing model’ was (temporarily) implemented as a TPoint recal which caused some confusion – when using these builds to ‘Sync mount into existing model’, upon Sync, press OK to the ‘Start Calibration Run’, and after the pointing sample is added, the cross hairs will jump to the sync star and the ‘Sync mount into existing model’ operation is complete.
Fixed a crash in Moon Viewer and when drawing the earth in the Location window.
Fixed a bug where the Autoguider and or Camera window was floating and then the icon size or style under Edit Preferences was edited causing all the controls in the window to go to their minimum size. The work around in the prior build is to re-dock and undock the window after editing the icon size or style.
Corrected misspelled asterism name.
Conjunction Finder window is easier to read in the Dark Theme.
Updated asterisms.
Night vision change to red is significantly faster.
Fixed a bug where the observing list window incorrectly shrunk the list.
Primarily benefitting large format cameras that use a lot of memory, running on Windows 64 bit operating systems, TheSky now has significantly more memory (TheSky on Mac/Linux already had this “extra memory”).
Fixed a bug where error windows were sometimes incorrectly hidden under other windows.
Fixed a bug where “Restoring Defaults” on an on-axis absolute encoder mount would not subsequently slew correctly. The work around in prior builds is to disconnect and reconnect the mount after restoring defaults.
Fixed a bug where turning on/off a TPoint model term didn’t apply.
Fixed a bug where turning on/off a TPoint model term using a multiple selection didn’t work.
Fixed a bug where the object id bulls eye was plotted at 0,0 when highlighting a TPoint calibration sample and that sample was not on screen.
The focuser now has a configurable ‘Focuser update interval’.
Fixed a bug when running AtFocus2.dbq took longer than it should.
Scripts can now get/set the extended camera mode (use Camera.PropStr(“m_csExCameraMode”)).
Added support for the nSTEP focuser.
When ‘Prompt to save modified chart settings’ is on (and ‘Automatically save chart settings upon exit’ is off) and orientation is set to ‘Zenith up’, any change in the chart center (i.e. N, S, E, W, drag screen, etc.) dirties the document so that upon exit (w/o explicitly saving first) TheSky will prompt ‘One or more chart settings have been modified. Do you want to save your changes?”
Fixed a bug when autoguiding with a rotator that was rotated to an arbitrary angle other than +/-180 from calibration, without autoguider recalibrating, the autoguider would continually overshoot very slightly in declination and not converge (worst case at 45 degees from calibration). The fix in prior builds is to recalibrate the autoguider if rotating the rotator to an angle other than +/- 180.
New feature for the Camera Add On… Right click the Autoguider graph, and choose “Real-time settings” to allow changing the following autoguiding settings while autoguiding:
- Enable or disable corrections for +X,-X,+Y,-Y
- Change Aggressiveness for +X,-X,+Y,-Y
Camera Add On – the ‘Filter Names Setup’ window can now accommodate any number of filters.
When TheSkyX is controling a mount through an ascom driver, the park implementation is delegated entirely to driver.
Made color of checked “on” push buttons lighter (more obvious that it is pressed).
Improved Moon Viewer background in Dark Theme
Push button down state more obvious in Dark Theme
Added two new scriptable objects, namely TextFile object and RunJavaScriptOutput object.
This build is a major technology update to TheSkyX incorporating the latest possible compilers and latest application framework development environment ensuring the future of TheSky and use of state of the art technologies.
On Windows TheSky now incorporates a unified, standardized, OpenGL layer instead of relying on OpenGl drivers written by various third parties.
The above two bullets alone took the majority of the time since the last prior daily build released approximately six months ago and we’ve worked long and hard since then. Getting out a build before this time simply wasn’t feasible. Never-the-less, we also made a few fixes and improvements, please read on…
Support for high DPI monitors on Windows.
Support for Retina displays on Mac.
When using TheSky over remote desktop on Windows, opengl can now be used.
New “dark” theme is on by default (can turn off under Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Miscellaneous, Dark theme).
New professional looking icons.
Fixed a bug where double clicking on a star listed in the Accurate Polar Alignment, didn’t slew. The work around in prior builds is to instead right click and choose Slew or Closed Loop Slew or Find.
Preferences is now under Edit, Preferences (was Tools, Preferences)
The Display menus lists all tabbable windows alphabetically, in two groups, “Sky Chart Windows” and “Imaging System Windows”.
- There is also new behavior when choosing a particular window from the Display menu, in which the particular window is instead brought forward upon selection and there is no longer a check box. Prior to this build, the Display menu for these windows had a check boxes that toggled the window visibility (show or hide) without intuitively bringing it forward making the Display menu an unintuitive means of selecting a particular window.
The FITS Viewer window now displays sextractor light source data under the mouse cursor provided the photo has previously had Image Link or a “Find Sources” performed on it. Click the “Cursor Info” tool button on the FITS Viewer window.
For easier selection, the tabbified windows on the chart window no longer have shortened names with “…” in their tabs under limited space conditions and instead always show the full window names (with a scroll bar to accommodate when space is limited).
Fixed a bug where the FITS viewer window Previous Next buttons were backwards.
Improved the grouping of settings under Edit, Preferences.
Autoguiding graphs window
- Double clicking on an autoguider graph point will display the corresponding autoguider photo, great debugging tool. Requirements –
  - Collect data with TheSky build 9530 or later with ‘Log autoguiding’ turned on and “Auto save” turned on for the autoguider.In short the, logging must be turned on and autoguider photos must be available to TheSky at the time of the double click in either the same folder as the autoguider log (happens by default) or the standard camera AutoSave locations. Double clicking on a graph of a log collected with an earlier build displays an appropriate error message.
- Autoguiding graphs show RA error and Dec error (provided telescope physical characteristics are entered under Camera setup) for any camera rotation. The autoguider must be calibrated in order for the transformation to RA/Dec to be correct.
- Autoguiding graphs indicate when the guide star signal is lost or when saturated pixels are found (legend is found on graph window).
- One can optional graph the corrections sent to the mount to scale along side the guide error (right click graph, choose “Graph Corrections”).
- Displays RMS error.
- The default Autoguiding graph history has increased from two minutes to five minutes and made configurable under Edit, Preferences, Camera, Autoguiding graph history.
- Added options to enable/disable each of the 4 autoguider relay adjustments along with 4 independent aggressiveness for the 4 directions in setup window.
- Because prior builds only had one autoguiding aggressiveness that applied equally to all 4 directions, automation clients setting this legacy Aggressiveness will set the new value on all four axis. Automation clients reading the legacy Aggressiveness will actually be returned the new X Plus value. This convention should not break existing client logic. Clients wanting to get/set the new values can do so by using the name based access functions (i.e. Camera.PropLng(“m_nXPlusAggressiveness”), Camera.PropLng(“m_nXMinusAggressiveness”), etc) .
A new “Imaging System Windows” toolbar was added for quick access to imaging system windows, sorted alphabetically.
Fixed a bug where all sky image link crashed on a rare photo.
TheSkyX’s now uses mean solar time (UT1) where appropriate. The basis for this time, namely UT1-UTC, that changes by 1-2 milliseconds per day, is handled automatically and its value can be viewed from the Chart Status window. Those who use the same model over very long time periods (months/years) without ever recalibrating should experience more consistent pointing.
For advanced users, TPoint offers a “More Graphs” button under the command line tab. Each graph is documented with in this window.
The filter wheel control is now on its own window (tabbed by default, but can be floated). In prior builds, filter wheel control was on the same window as the Camera. You can almost return to that same configuration by docking both windows at the same level, rather than behind one another.
There are now icons on the Imaging System Setup tree.
The FITS Viewer window now has an option to “Invert” the photo (stars white vs stars black). This option is a display only option, is not persistent and doesn’t actually change the data in the photo.
Fixed a bug where TheSky’s “Rotate rotator 180 when the OTA side of pier changes” might have commanded the rotator to go outside 0 to 360 degrees.
Added a Close button to the Bisque TCS window
Fixed a bug when using “Focuser Training” to compute filter offsets in which they incorrectly resulted in zero upon pressing “Use Current Values” on some computers due to locale settings.
Also fixed a bug where after pressing “Use Current Values” of “Focuser Training” the offset values were not persistent after exit and restart of TheSky. The work around in prior builds – after pressing “Use current values” go to “Filter Names Setup” window and press OK to make offsets values to be persistent.
Fixed many windows that had one or more edit controls and after editing a value, pressing ENTER to accept the value, would instead incorrectly press the default button producing unexpected behavior.
From start, the first time Automated Pointing Run window came up, if you went to the “Acquire Pointing Samples” tab , w/o touching the “Create Pointing Targets” there were no targets.
My Chart Elements maintains coordinates when switching between Equatorial (J2000) and Horizon radio buttons.
This build prevents Paramount MX customer from incorrectly updating from the original MX firmware to the latest and provides a message indicating the intermediate firmware versions that first must be installed.
Asterisms are no longer always turned on when the Constellation & Asterisms window is opened.
Closed loop slew now ensures a light frame is captured.
Display an appropriate error message if the camera calibration library is only at say 2×2 only and attempt to full calibrate at 1×1.
Fixed a bug where the @Focus log reported -1 for the “Time Taken” field.
Fixed a bug in the polar alignment report when in southern hemisphere the Paramount specific sentence raise or lower was backwards. A work around in prior builds, click the “Show alternative polar alignments (advanced)” box and use the raise/lower word there or anywhere else on the report, except the on the Paramount specific sentence.
Corrected the case for constellation art source file names so the constellation art appears on case-sensitive operating systems.
Take series Repeat field maximum is now 5000 (was 1000).
Starlight Xpress plug-in fixes for M25C and M26C cameras..
Starlight Xpress Lodestar pixels can now be forced “square.”
FLI camera plug-in 2.0 fixes + now supports overscan and non visible pixel acquisition.
Expanded the list of Canon camera support, updated Canon SDK, along with bug fixes to Canon plug-in.
Tools, Verify TheSkyX Time now works (data source changed).
Added SX-M26 X2 Plug In
Fix a crash caused by leaving Navigator window open on exit.
The Accurate Polar Alignment now can optionally offer a list of suitable stars to choose from.
The default ‘Bad pointing sample criterion (degrees)’ is now 5 degrees.
Camera Add On
- Can now control Backyard EOS cameras.
- A warning is giving if ‘Take Series’ is attempted when autosave is off.
- Improved autoguiding when the guide star signal is very weak.
- Fixed an issue where sometimes the three dimensional star on the Focus Graphs window did not update. (A work around in prior builds was to instead view the three dimensional star displayed on the Autoguider Graphs window which doesn’t have the malady and is updated even when running focus mode operations, not just while autoguiding.)
Polar alignment report now warns to not alter the mount’s polar alignment during a pointing run.
Fixed a fringe case where dragging the Paramount’s configurable flip hour angle was limited when dragging across RA 0/24. The workaround in prior builds is to use the Bisque TCS window and type in the value.
Added new FLI camera, focuser and filter wheel X2 Plug In files.
Fixed a bug where using the ccdsoft5Image.FITSKeyword() method to write a double would incorrectly write the value as string in the FITS header.
Autoguding Graphs window
- The title now shows the name of the autoguiding log.
- Remembers the folder where the last autoguider log was opened.
- Fixed a bug in where the 3D rendered guide star shown while autoguiding wasn’t in the middle of the drawing surface if and only if the track box size was less than 32×32. This was merely a display idiosyncrasy and did not affect autoguiding.
FITS viewer window now has Previous/Next buttons that will use the currently opened photo to conveniently move to the previous or next photo in the same folder, sorted by file time, with the same extension.
Added scripting method sky6RASCOMTele::ParkAndDoNotDisconnect (and related unparking methods) to allow Parking w/o automatically disconnecting. Nothing changed with existing methods.
Added rotator methods to ccdSoftCamera.
Fixed a bug where the On-Axis tab of the Bisque TCS window was accessible when the on-axis hardware wasn’t present.
Fixed a bug where Protrack wasn’t up-to-date after completing an Accurate Polar Alignment. Prior to this build the work around is to de-activate and re-activate Protrack or disconnect/reconnect the mount or exit/restart TheSky after completing an Accurate Polar Alignment.
Fixed a bug where Accurate Polar Alignment didn’t work with AP GEM mounts.
Fixed a bug where the x2 Lodestar camera driver would periodically have a corrupt download. This could be “the fix” or a “significant fix” for those who are having difficulty autoguiding using the Lodestar. The reported symptoms include “cannot autoguide” or “have trailed stars” or “elongated stars” or “jumps” while autoguiding, yet at the same time the same customer can take a 5 or more minute unguided exposure (PEC and Protrack on) without elongated stars. Those autoguiding with the Lodestar are encouraged to try this update.
Choosing Frame on a constellation now does a better job framing it.
Camera module changes:
- Added the option to select different image calibration options (including full calibration reduction groups) for individual image series. Among other possibilities, this allows creating master flat images for multiple filters and to have the reduction process proceed automatically during image acquisition without user intervention. Selecting the ‘Default’ option for this will command TSX to use whatever method is configured on the “Take Photo” tab (identical to the previous behavior).
- If autoguider calibration fails, the guide star is moved to its original position.
- Fixed a bug where scripting calls to lNumberFilters() or szFilterName() or setszFilterName() would incorrectly clear focus training settings.
- Right click photo, “Center via Camera Relays” is no longer subject to the autoguider Aggressiveness setting.
- Fixed a bug introduced in a prior build where scripted access to the focuser temperature for a TCFS was always zero.
- Fixed a bug where scripted access to the focuser who’s temperature “Source” was set to “Paramount” was always zero.
- Fixed incorrect title on TPoint graph – was “Declination vs. zenith distance” is now “Zenith distance vs. zenith distance”
- A TPoint recalibration now has its own Run Date.
- The entered temperature in “Atmospheric Re&fraction Parameters” is now persistent.
- Autoguider Calibration results now fill the window while maintaining the aspect ratio on both the Autoguide Setup window and the Autoguider Calibration Complete window.
- Fixed a bug when calibrating a displayed photo (by pressing the “Reduce” button on the Image Calibration Library window) the photo didn’t immediately reflect the changes. The work around before this build is to adjust the histogram of the displayed photo after pressing the “Reduce” button.
Improvement – “Open Tracking Log” has an intuitive default when the last opened folder/file no longer exists.
Bisque TCS Window – A PEC “Fit” operation on an autoguider log is now prohibited because the PEC fitting routines are looking for mount specific characteristics which don’t apply to an autoguiding log.
There is a graphical change to the Autoguiding Graphs window plots it data – the x and y error graphs are now drawn with a line connecting each successive point (line graph) where as in prior builds a line was instead drawn from zero to each point (bar graph).
Dome Add On – Fixed a bug when dome tracking was turned on and the mount tracked across the mount’s flip hour angle (or the flip hour angle was dragged across the mount’s position, i.e. only near the meridian), the dome was incorrectly slewed to reflect the beyond the pole state w/r/t the mount’s flip hour angle. The work around before this build – before slewing to a target that needs tracked for an extended period, first drag the mount’s flip hour to your advantage, either the maximum or minimum limit, to enable the longest possible track. This eliminates the issue since mount cannot track across it’s flip hour angle because it physical cannot.
Fixed a bug where the camera’s progress bar wouldn’t update during the exposure, the photo would complete as expected the only issue was the progress bar wouldn’t update during the exposure (see item 9, Build 8641). The workaround before this build was to exit and restart TheSky.
Improved logging for the “Log ccdsoftCamera and TheSky…” option with more isolation information.
Removed ambiguity when setting soft limits for a Paramount, especially in the Southern Hemisphere.
Fixed a bug when taking photo’s with CCDSoft’s camera where the FITS ‘FILTER’ keyword was accidentally omitted.
Fixed a rare crash when using the Paramount’s Built in focuser.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 8743 where some autoguiding controls were incorrectly made visible on the Take Photo , Focus and Take Series tabs.
Fixed a crash running w/o OpenGL caused by having the polar scope chart element on.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where “Preview Master Frame” under Tools, Calibration Library, would sometimes leave up a status window after the operation was complete.
Improved status and allow cancel while reducing a folder of photos.
Possibly fixed the issue where the camera’s progress bar stopped updating.
On Windows, fixed a tiny memory leak that occurred on some computers.
Fixed a bug introduced in build 8805 where polar alignment report ME adjustment (“raise” or “lower”) for southern hemisphere was backwards in the upper section of the report but correct in the lower section of the report.
Fixed a bug where the FITS Viewer window cross hair was drawn incorrectly when the photo size changed (prior to this build, the work around was to simply turn the cross hair off and back on).
Allow the Paramount’s built in focuser to be used as the Autoguider’s focuser.
Corrected a bug that would cause the current video number being recorded to display incorrectly during round-robin video sequences.
Fixed a What’s Up query bug that caused a crash when the number of objects in the What’s Up list was greater than the ‘Maximum Objects In Observing List’ advanced preference value.
Fixed an issue on some computers where TheSkyX to crash on exit.
Fixed an issue introduced in the prior build where on some computers TheSkyX crashed on start (under opengl only).
Made it easier to type in data/time in date/time tool bar
Improved logging for the option “Log ccdsoftCamera and sky6RASCOMTele methods” especially for trapping exceptions on exit.
Made it easier to input Scale on PEC tab of Bisque TCS window.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build 8636 where the “Confirm Slews” option did not prompt even when the option was on.
Fixed a typo on the enumerations for the ShowInventory.js script.
Some tool tips have expanded information to minimize common support questions and confusion.
Improved satellite computation accuracy.
Dome Add On – Fixed a bug where the Dome tab would wrongly expand in width to fit an error messages instead of text wrapping.
Added additional in/out distance selections that should allow for more versatile focuser control. In/out distance options now display the number of steps the focuser will move, in addition to the travel percentage.
Automated Image Link Settings now include a configurable, independent filter name (applies to Automated Pointing Run and Closed Loop Slew).
To aid in spectroscopy, added controls to the video display that allow the crosshairs to be adjusted (vertical/horizontal position + line spacing). Line spacing can be set to 0 to create a single line.
Fix bug where a retry, during Automated Pointing Run, nearly at zenith, might attempt to slew to an invalid location (rare).
Bug fix – Image Calibration Library ‘Preview Master Frame’ allows complete control (typically histogram) of the displayed photo.
Camera module changes:
- Now allow setting the Repeat field of a take series to zero, effectively giving an convenient means to turn off a series without fully deleting it.
- Take Series data can be copied to and pasted from the clipboard (use standard keystroke CTRL+C and CTRL+V).
- Autoguider graphs will now display guide error in arcseconds (in addition to guide error in pixels) provided the focal length of the telescope is entered under Camera Setup and the camera under control supports the PixelSizeInterface (most camera’s do). Remember there is a focal length entry for both the Autoguider and the Imager.
Slightly improved the polar alignment report.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where the Canon wouldn’t take photos.
Dome Add On window – clarified any units can be used, improved dome labels and added tool tips to dome dimensions.Simplified dome geometry entry by placing two settings that are zero for typical GEM and fork mounts under an Advanced setting while noting they are zero typically.
Camera Add On – made it easier to enter and edit decimal exposure times (and all other double entries).
Likely fixed symptoms described in the daily build 8641, bullet item with “Camera Status Debug”.
Likely fixed a rare bug where Automated Pointing run would be waiting at “Taking photo…” with no photo in progress.
Fixed typos in comments for some FITS keywords.
Fixed a rare bug where sometimes dragging the Paramount’s flip hour angle didn’t work.
Fixed a bug that caused TheSkyX to crash if after the focuser was switched from one model to another and then one of the train buttons on the Focuser tab’s Focuser Training controls was clicked.
Now prohibit doing more than one Accurate Polar Alignment w/o recalibration.
Fixed a bug that would cause TheSkyX to hang during focuser adjustments for temperature compensation with certain focusers.
Fixed a bug where minimizing then restoring the FITS Viewer window didn’t restore to the previous position but instead maintained the top left coordinates of the minimized window.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build (and exists only in the prior daily build) where the model put in place after an Accurate Polar Alignment was invalid. The symptoms were upon pressing the ‘Finish’ button the RMS jumped up and pointing was subsequently off.
Take 2, New feature – Completing an ‘Accurate Polar Alignment’ immediately puts a pointing model in place that assumes the polar adjustment was performed correctly and you are good to go, no need to perform a recalibration.
Some improved photos on both Rough and Accurate Polar Alignment windows.
Ensure that Ascom mounts always move at least 1/2 sidereal rate when pulseguiding, even if they support slower slew speeds.
Bug Fix – Sometimes aborting a Paramount slew would generate the error MOTOR_POSERRORLIM 24002 “The mount cannot slew.”
New feature – Completing an ‘Accurate Polar Alignment’ immediately puts a pointing model in place that assumes the polar adjustment was performed correctly and you are good to go, no need to perform a recalibration.
Bug fix – Closed Loop Slew and the rotator option ‘Rotate 180° when OTA Side of Pier Changes’ would sometimes take photo when before the rotator had finished.
Finishing an Accurate Polar Alignment now prohibits (accidentally) adding more pointing samples to the model.
Possibly fixed a bug where camera autoconnect tried to connect to sub hardware that has no selection.
Corrected the spelling of axis on the autoguide setting window, added Windows accelerators.
Improved Rough and Accurate Polar Alignment wizard (text and graphics).
Give a clearer error message when Internet type operations fail when the network is unavailable, i.e. cable is unplugged.
Help needed to isolate a very specific issue – the symptom is that the camera progress bar stops updating for some customers while acquiring an exposure, the exposure completes successfully, the only issue is that the progress bar does not update during the exposure. If you experience this symptom, double click the progress bar to display the “Camera Status Debug” window, take say a 5 second exposure and when complete, right click, select all, and copy the log post it. If you mess up, press Clear, repeat the prior instructions. IOW, most interested in the ”Camera Status Debug” log for a single 5 second exposure when the progress bar isn’t working (no more, no less). This log file is only meaningful when experiencing the symptoms of this bullet, no other symptom(s) are applicable to acquiring this log.
Third party software, autoguiding a the Paramount with DirectGuide, doing large, synchronous, moves say for autoguide ditering and immediately calling sky6RASCOMTele::isSlewComplete, might sometimes have received a stale value.
Don’t allow the Automated Image Link Settings to be “squished”.
Bug Fix – An automated pointing run using all sky image link with the blind option would unnecessarily animate the success. Also, an automated pointing run using all sky image link would always unnecessarily reset the star chart to that of the image link.
The setup tab of the Automated Pointing Calibration Run window now has the “Use All Sky Image Link” option on it (formerly this option was only on the Image Link setup window).
New feature/bug fix – Automated pointing runs may now be aborted by aborting from the camera or telescope windows if their operation is in progress.
New, intelligent automated pointing run calibration path.
Trapped cases of Search FOVs being set too high that may be caused a crash.
Limit “Search area” for the Automated ImageLink Settings window to 8 (was 10).
Provide a means for x2 drivers to display a photo in a X2GUIInterface window.
TheSky HD for the iPad can natively display photos it acquires from TheSkyX.
Updated Celestron driver to allow Sync for StarSense hand paddles. Must choose the StarSense “mount” under Telescope Setup.
Revised text for Advanced All Sky Image Link options.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where satellites displayed incorrectly.
Updated Canon camera plug in.
Update Starlight Xpress plug in.
Removed a line drawn from center of plotted ellipses.
A clearer camera auto connect error message – now includes if its the Camera or Autoguider and the actual name of the sub hardware unable to connect.
Fixed a bug in the prior build where depending on the upgrade path the camera auto connect error might be incorrectly be displayed when no device was selected. The work around for that build is to merely reselect the device representing “No Device Selected”.
Bug Fix – @Focus log “Time Taken” was sometimes zero.
The Bisque TCS “Copy Parameters” report now shows TheSky version, build, current date/ time, and motor and IO firmware versions.
When clicking on an ImageLinked photo, the “Linked Photo” is prepended with the FITS keyword “OBJECT” name field. This preserves the “OBJECT” keyword when manually slewing to an archived photo providing a much better target name for camera operations.
Now can ‘Find’ GSC stars with TYC, GSC, TYCHO – this also fixed a rare bug where @Focus2 would sometimes give “Object not Found” error when auto slew to focus start is on.
The Accurate Polar Alignment now gracefully prevents incorrectly reusing (iteratively) a given re-calibration data (say after having adjusted polar alignment).

Pre-2016

December, 2014 – TheSkyX Version 10.3.0 Build 8461

This is the last release that is compatible with Windows XP operating system. All later versions require Windows 7 or later.
Added support for Orion StarShoot autoguider (SSAG).
The TPoint polar alignment report now shows adjustment information for the Paramount currently in use, only.
Improved autoguiding when using large diameter guide stars.
Rotators now have a tabbed dialog in the same style as the other major hardware devices.
MoveTo now implemented for focusers (just like CCDSoft).
Improved histogram performance.
Image link window now has min/max buttons (because the window is rather large on small screen, and it is nice to be able to minimize/restore).
Added a “Set Chart Time To Photo Time” menu command to the FITSViewer’s right-click pop-up menu. This sets TheSkyX’s time to the time at which the FITS image was taken.
The FITS viewer now supports a CCDSoft-style crosshair reticule.
Camera Add On supports autoguiding.
Added UCAC4 support.
FOVIs are now integrated with the hardware rotator.
Camera Add On supports the following cameras:
- SBIG STT
- SBIG FW7-STX
- SBIG FW8-STT
TheSkyX can control most serial devices (mounts, domes, focusers, etc.) over Wi-Fi. Click here for more information.
TheSkyX can route native RS232 serial data streams over TCP/IP instead of a serial port (instead of choosing “COM”, choose “TCP/IP”). Can eliminate the need for operating system level, virtual serial ports when using TheSkyX to control serial devices over third party, TCP/IP to serial or Wi-Fi to serial adaptors.
Added support for rotators.
New FITS display engine: new toolbar, zoom in, zoom out, drag.
Integrated ASCOM-compatible plug ins for cameras, focusers, filter wheels, domes and rotators.
Improved Image Link success on images covering three degrees and more.
Camera Add On supports Canon camera drivers.Canon DSLR driver for Mac included with Mac Daily Build installer (OS X 10.6 or later and Intel Mac required). See TheSkyX Pro and SAE User Guide Revision 1.4.3 or later for details about using this driver.
Tweaked Polar Alignment report to make it more understandable.
Camera Autosave by default now creates a date-based sub-folder (can be shutoff).
Errors reported by standard FITS library are displayed as textual strings.
Tools > Open Fits automatically zooms out on large images.
Added a manufacturer/model label to the top of the Rotator window.
Rotator hardware may now be commanded to any position angle by simply dragging a FOVI that is linked to the rotator.
Camera Add On now displays camera temperature, setpoint and TE cooler power.
ACL dome supports LoggerInterface.
Update Rotator window. It now includes the usual connect/disconnect/configure buttons common to the other devices, implements an implicit connect, and ties into the star chart FOV.
AutoZoom applied camera acquired images.
Added phase angle to asteroids.
Added SBIG ST-400 and ST-401 cameras to Detector Geometry list.
SDB searches now include angular size (like ARP).
Added Zoom Tool command to Tools menu.
ProTrack takes slew errors including aborted slews in stride.
When connected to a Paramount going to File, Open or TPoint, File, Open (or any operating system dialog to view the file system) would take a long time for the system dialog to display the file system.
UI is more responsive when ProTrack is engaged.
Photos and constellation drawings slowly fade to black as the field of view decreases.
TheSkyX can be exited and restarted while doing a TPoint full calibration or re-calibration and continue the calibration.
A single button click downloads the latest FOVI equipment databases from Software Bisque web page.
Temma driver now allows sidereal tracking to be turned on via Orchestrate and external script for Temama 2 and later mounts.
Based on updated tracking rate documentation, AP mounts can now track satellites using TheSkyX’s Track Satellite command.
Added an option to the Astro-Physics window that allows the mount’s tracking rate to be configured when TheSkyX disconnects (When tracking satellites, TheSkyX sets the AP mount’s tracking rates in both ra and dec. These rates can cause the mount to quickly track into unwanted orientations.)
Added SBIG STF-8300 support for Camera Add On customers.
Allowed setting the interface for SBIG ST-5C/PixCel255, ST-237/PixCel237.
Added Auto Contrast Setup for camera add on acquired images.
Added ‘Allow dragging flip hour angle’ option under Telescope setup.
Enhanced movie creation.
Finding Super Model is faster.
DSS images now use a better DSS specific autocontrast algorithm (was SBIG).
Added exposure delay to camera add on.
On the Bisque TCS window, the joystick graphic is enable/disabled appropriately based on firmware version (introduced in prior daily build).
The daily build installer itself is now digitally signed (not just the binaries contained within it).
Added support for the Paramount MTY.
TPoint window remembers that tab that was last used between exit an restart.
Location changes are now prohibited while a mount is connected.
Drag and drop support – Drag and drop any FITS photo, star chart or TPoint file (*.fits, *.skyx, *.tptx or a tpoint dat file) on the star chart and have it automatically opened. Also, if you have the Image link window open, “drop” a fits file directly onto the “Find Astrometric Solution” or the “All Sky Search” button to have Image Link performed upon drop.
Improved error message when the Paramount can’t slew.
Camera Add On auto-connect to sub devices now displays a very clear error message if connection to one or more sub devices fails.
Changed the position of the Image Linked photo from end of list of id’d objects to front of list.
TPoint Add On – It is now more convenient to change the folder where TPoint settings are opened and saved. No longer always default to the folder “/Software Bisque/TheSkyX Professional Edition/TPoint” during “File Open” and “File Save As” but rather the folder is remembered.
“Rough Polar Alignment” procedure for Paramount’s allowing an easy (even daytime) jump on a rough polar alignment.
“Accurate Polar Alignment” procedure precisely offsets a bright start so that when it is re-centered using the mount’s polar alignment knobs the mount is polar aligned (iow visual feedback on the polar alignment adjustment using a bright star).
Prompt before undoing re-calibration.
Added scanLine to the ccdsoftImage object.
Images taken with Ascom cameras (along with cameras linked via MaxIm DL) will now record the camera’s pixel size in microns in the FITS header when that data is available.
Support for QHYCCD (Windows only) and Optec Pyxis LE Rotator X2 Plug Ins (Mac and Windows).
Closed loop slew no longer requires the AutoSave checkbox to be turned on.
Automated Pointing Runs/Closed Loop Slews runs have their own, independent binning setting.
Camera module – when using two, independent SBIG camera’s, one as the imager, one as the autoguider, autoguiding is no longer (conservatively) paused when collecting a dark frame on the Imager.
Camera simulator, simulating DSS, won’t give stars for dark, bias and flat frames.
The camera’s exposure delay now applies to flat fields (in addition to light frames).
TheSky Controlled Telescope Driver has been updated to allow third-party applications to autoguide Paramount’s using Direct Guide. Run ‘TheSky Telescope Driver Setup.exe’ in TheSkyX’s folder to install this driver.
Corrected an error that was causing focusers to be unable to use mounts as temperature sources for temperature compensation. (Separate installer available here: /find_cs_post/?_bbp_old_topic_id=23183&_bbp_old_reply_id=106120.
The photo Histogram window is completely new and now uses all cores, great for making realtime background/range change even on large format cameras. Also uses CCDSoft’s exact code for doing SBIG auto background and range (very common and better default/first impression appearance).
Camera Add on For the AO track box size, added “Extra Large” and “Extra Extra Large” options.
Camera Add on Correlation Autoguiding – In addition to being able to autoguide on stars, TheSkyX has the ability to guide on extended targets such as sunspots, solar prominences, lunar craters, etc. For features that change over time, the guide target may be set to automatically update itself every few minutes. Note that the larger the target (in terms of pixels), the more processor intensive the search for that target will be. A size of 50×50 should give good results on most systems. This is a fantastic new feature for solar imaging where there isn’t anything BUT the sun to guide on.
Added AutomatedImageLinkSettings object.
Dome Add On – New “Slit status” – “Unknown”, “Last Open command successful”, “Last Close command successful”.
Improved the confirmation dialog when commanding a rotator via the FOV on the star chart. It should now be much harder to accidentally modify the FOV.
Added the ClosedLoopSlew scripting object (Camera Add On required) so that external programs can perform a closed loop slew.
New feature – Added Imaging System Profiles to allow maintaining more than one set of hardware configurations.
Camera Add On
- Don’t allow trailing spaces on autosave folder name.
- New option “Remove whitespace from AutoSave filenames” under Camera AutoSave Setup, Advanced.
- Fixed a bug introduced in prior build 7789 where the filter wheel was incorrectly commanded to move with every exposure rather than only when the filter did indeed change.
- Scripting – Added centerAO() method to TheSkyX.ccdsoftCamera object. Note: clients using the CCDSoft2XApapter object can call this method by setting the property ‘Camera.PropLng(“centerAO()”) = 1’ as a workaround to avoid changing that interface (especially for those using early binding).
- Supports dithering.
- Software-based temperature focus compensation while exposing is now available for any focuser capable of reporting its temperature to TSX (NOT including Optec’s line of TCF focusers, which perform similar functionality in hardware).
- Users of a wide range of mounts will now have the option to autoguide directly via their mount, without needing to make use of camera relays or a separate autoguiding cable. Supported mounts are: Gemini, AP, Celestron, iOptron, LX200, Temma, (Ascom Windows-only).
Corrected a bug that would crash Temma mounts when Pulse Guide, or moving via the virtual hand-paddle.
Added toggle for extend labeling comets with magnitude.
TPoint Add On
- Added alternate polar alignment adjustment options.
- Added a graph of the path taken during the pointing run.
Camera Add On: added the SelectedHardware scripting object.
Improved overall performance and speed of All Sky Image Link.
MKS-5000 WiSky adaptor board can be configured from the Bisque TCS window.
Improved support for all ascom devices.
Distribute native apogee filter wheel support (Apogee OEM driver required).
Some rotators move clockwise as their angle values increase, some move counterclockwise. Previously, the direction of rotation was stored as a property of each FOV defined in the system. Now that property has been moved into the configuration of the rotator itself. This should make rotators easier to configure and use, and also makes it possible to fully utilize the properties of the rotator throughout the rest of TheSkyX.
Focuser temperature compensation can now make use of temperature values read from either the device itself, the partnered device, or a Paramount mount.
Exposure times in Take Series now allow 3 decimals of precision.
Added option for TheSkyX’s TCPServer to automatically close the socket connection upon responding.
Camera Add On now supports the AO on the SBIG STT/STX/STXL.
Added “Closed Loop Slew” button to star chart’s right click menu, Observing List window, Telescope window and Telescope Toolbar nearly every place a Slew button is available.
Added commonly used buttons to telescope toolbar.
TheSkyX focuser drivers that support logging will now allow their logs to be displayed in the GUI.
Ascom focusers, domes, rotators now implement logging.
Manually moving the focuser now automatically toggles temperature compensation off (without clearing the KVP).
Added a button “Automated Image Link Settings” on the Image Link Setup tab that controls settings using during automated image links (like when doing a TPoint automated pointing run or a Closed Loop Slew). Prior to this, these settings where only available through the optional TPoint Add On.
Camera Add On: Image and Video “Take Series” has a new the option to execute the “Repeat” per series or across series.
Added support for the Orion filter wheel.
Added the Closed Loop Slew feature.
TPoint Add On: added an option to show unused pointing calibration samples on graphs.
Camera Add On now includes the native support for the Starlight Xpress monochrome Lodestar autoguider.
Camera Add On: Filters can be assigned focuser offsets.
Windows only: A “Black Box Recorder” feature, which is “Off” by default can be used to submit crash logs to Software Bisque. Any one experiencing a crash and willing to help fix the problem can change this setting to “Save to disk” (restart TheSkyX to have the option take effect). After a crash, zip up and email the data found in the folder “Software Bisque/TheSkyX Professional Edition/Black Box Recorder Data”.
Camera Add On: Autoguider log now includes TheSkyX build number, start time (local and UT), mount selection and camera binning.
Fixed a bug where switching from one camera to another could result in some of the old camera’s settings being applied to the new camera, even when the new camera didn’t support those settings.
Fixed an OpenGL bug that causes the Moon to be all black.
Fixed a bug where Paramount PEC didn’t work for southern hemisphere with non symmetric PEC curves.
Ascom mounts now support open-loop, “press to slew” movements, for capable mounts.
TheSkyX Video Integration has been enabled for Windows users of TheSkyX Professional with the Camera Add On. Here’s a short list of features (which will be documented later in more detail in the user’s manual).
- TheSkyX can preview video in real time. The preview display is embedded in the “video” tab. It is possible to “tear off” this tab if a larger preview display area is required.
- Because the video camera settings that work well for your luminance filter may not work well your red filter, it is possible to save a video camera “profile” that contains a full set of video camera settings. Switching between sets of video camera settings on a filter changes then becomes quick and easy.
- TheSkyX can be programmed to collect a sequence of video clips, where each clip has its own duration, video camera profile, and filter settings. This allows a user to capture a full LRGB+ set of video sequences (with different video camera settings for each filter) as a one-button operation.
- TheSky’s Camera and or Autoguider may be selected to use the Video Camera as their data source. This allows TheSkyX to capture single frame, FITS-format snapshots from the video feed for use with TSX’s imaging tool suite: TPoint Automated Pointing Runs, Image Link, @Focus2, Autoguiding, etc.
- Updated the Ascom to TheSkyX mount adaptor driver (formerly called TheSky Controlled Telescope Driver on the Ascom page). So that this driver can be most easily maintained by third-party developers, a separate driver installer is available here: /find_cs_post/?_bbp_old_topic_id=23183&_bbp_old_reply_id=106120.
- Added two new All Sky Image Link options a) Use All Sky Image Link for automated pointing runs (off by default), and b) Use All Sky Image Link for scripted Image Link (off by default).
- Changes and Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where starting another Accurate or Rough Polar alignment didn’t always start at the beginning.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where downloading more than one group of satellites would only downloaded the last group.
Corrected default time zone for locations observing Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time (AEDT).
Fixed a bug where TheSkyX’s camera wouldn’t record the Orchestrate comment of the TakeImage command.
Fix bug where AllSky wouldn’t work dependent upon install route.
TPoint recalibration RMS is now more appropriately computed.
Corrected an issue that would cause images simulated using DSS to appear incorrectly if binning was enabled.
TheSkyX should now be a little bit more forgiving if an Ascom driver unexpectedly returns 2 byte results instead of 4 byte results (or vise-versa).
Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause a crash when selecting a temperature compensation temperature source for the first time.
Fixed a bug where the “Telescope Position.txt” log file didn’t aways hold the most up-to-date telescope position.
Paramount sync history is now updated with every sync (the work around was to change any parameter or re-read all parameters or connect/disconnect).
Fixed a bug with camera simulator doing web DSS simulation would sometimes give ERR_POINTER.
Fixed a bug where focuser temperature was always zero.
Fixed a bug where focuser temperature was kept between connect/disconnect and different hardware.
Fixed a regression bug that prevented Celestron mounts from being synchronized.
Fixed a bug introduced in a prior daily build that gave error “A necessary driver was not found. Error 217” when attempting to connect or choose SBIG AO camera.
Corrected a bug that caused dragging FOVs with a non-zero position angle to incorrectly command rotators.
Corrected a bug that would cause FOVs to appear incorrectly rotated on the star chart in Orthographic projection (especially near the poles).
Fix a bug where a fresh install may not find the all sky database.
Fixed a bug where creating a New Profile for an imaging system wouldn’t cause the user interface to reflect all the changes in hardware selections and their corresponding properties (except on exit and restart as a work around). Only New Profile was incorrect, Open Profile and Save Profile As worked as expected.
Corrected a bug where CCW-oriented rotators would incorrectly load their configuration preferences on TSX startup
All Sky Image link now always restores source extraction parameters.
Fixed a bug introduced into a prior daily build that caused All Sky Image to crash on some photos.
FITS file extensions are now consistent throughout when opening FITS files.
Corrected a typo on the WiSky configuration window.
Camera Add On: Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause single exposures to fail to move the filter wheel.
Fixed a bug where object names were truncated when searching MPCORB.DAT.
Fixed a bug where it wasn’t possible to abort an All Sky Image Link from the automated pointing run window (aborting from the image link window was the workaround).
Fixed a possible crash when attempting to PulseGuide with some native mount drivers.
This update allows TheSkyX to more gracefully handle drivers that don’t quite conform to Ascom standard.
Corrected a bug that would cause temperature compensation to sometimes occur even if disabled in the GUI.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build that broke a Photo’s right click “To Image Link” “Center Cursor…” and “Set Chart Time to Photo Time” calls to incorrectly report “file/folder does not exist”.
Camera Add On Bug Fix: ntroduced in build 7708, calling szBinModeFromIndex(0) threw an exception Parameter not optional.
TheSkyX now is able to autoguide after rotating a connected rotator. The rotator must be connected during autoguider calibration and subsequent autoguidng. Prior builds required re-calibrating the autouguider after the rotate.
The user can manually control declination when autoguiding when not connected to a mount.
Getting/setting m_ptGuideStarHiRes,m_TrackBoxHiRes, m_TrackBoxHiResAO, and all autoguide calibration parameters by scripting Camera.PropLng is no longer case sensitive.
Relay-guiding with MaxIm’s camera now rounds UP to the nearest second
Corrected the durations when relay-guiding with Ascom cameras should now be correct (previous relay activations were much shorter than they should have been).
Automated pointing run Sextractor defaults are now 5,10 (were 10,10) detection threshold, and minium number of pixels above threshold, respectively.
Bug Fix – On Windows, sometimes File Open File/File Save windows did not refresh properly. The workaround in the past was to lower the target frame rate, which is no longer necessary.
Fixed a bug where Image Link was incorrectly ignoring the rotator’s angle when it was automatically adjusting FOV angles to match its solved angle.
Corrected spelling error in FITS header comment.
Fixed a bug where the date time format was incorrectly being set to the Image Link path by going to Tools, Open Fits.
Completion of a Paramount Find home takes ProTrack in stride (a benign issue).
Fix potential crash when a FOVI with an OAG element is turned on and the field of view is small.
Fixed a display error when showing the location reported by the NexStar hand paddle.
Fixed a possible crash caused by attempting to correlation-guide without a target.
Fix a bug introduced in prior build’s new feature – Image Link’s automated pointing run editing always works now.
Corrected a bug that was causing Ascom mounts to move incorrectly in response to TheSkyX’s virtual hand paddle.
Tool, Telescope Setup, fixed accelerator buddies for two controls were not “set” (so an ampersand appeared on the control’s text).
Increased the width of the splitter control to make windows that include this control more obvious.
Avoid potential @Focus2 crash.
Bug fix – changes to DSS setup parameters apply w/o having to close and re-open DSS window.
The frame-grabbing video camera no longer requires that the video preview window be present in order to function.
Fix for incorrect display of virtual mounts in southern hemisphere.
Possible fix for scripted slew receiving error 213 command in progress.
Possible fix for scripted slews that are ignored.
Increase in maximum dome width for graphical display.
Acquiring a FITS from the camera, then pressing ESC on the FITS Viewer window (to hide it), and acquiring another photo now shows the FITS Viewer window. (The window previously remained hidden.)
Southern latitudes less than 1 are now accepted correctly in the Location window.
Increased the maximum allowable dome slit dimensions for graphical display.
Ascom mounts that implement Park, without Unpark should now work correctly
Fixed a bug introduced in a prior build where Tools, Open FITS would change the date/time format.
Ascom drivers should now more cleanly detach from their target device when they care commanded to disconnect
If an Ascom mount is already parked when a connection to it is made, this should now correctly be reported.
Check for updates now also checks if a newer daily build is available.
Camera Add On: Fixed a bug that was causing directory calibration to improperly truncate filenames that contained multiple separator characters.
Added missing Canon_notes.ui to the daily build installer.
Users may now manually move the mount via PulseGuide “relays” on the camera/autoguider tabs. This corrects a bug where pressing these buttons with PulseGuide enabled would cause TSX to hang.
Domes may now be configured to track the telescope.
Non-EQ mounts that can slew in Ra/Dec but not Alt/Az will now be asked for their Ra/Dec position.
Increase timeout for moving SBIG filter wheels.
COM automation calls to TheSkyX are not affected if TheSkyX is minimized and “Sleep on minimize” is true.
“Sleep On minimize” is now off by default.
Fixed some format errors in log messages for Alt/Az telescopes and telescopes that report negative position angles.
The ERR_COMMANDINPROGRESS is thrown if a slew is issued while a slew is already in progress and logged in ISLog1.txt.
Updated FLI camera driver to resolve a crash.
Fixed a bug where the camera Set Point wasn’t always persistent.
Fixed a bug where custom camera AutoSave file names could cause the raw photo to not be saved (when Reduction was set to Full Calibration).
Scripting – Fixed a bug where it wasn’t possible to access calibration results for an SBIG external CCD.
Made splitter window sizes persistent for the Camera, Autoguider, Video, and Video (Guider) windows.
Moving the focuser while the camera is in focus mode, now causes the camera’s photo to be aborted and restarted after the focus move is complete.
Fixed a bug where the photo cross hair would not shut off.
A “Find” for GSC b:n returns the Tycho data as first priority (they have the same b:n designation).
Alt+mouse click now puts the Mouse click position in the first position.
When doing a “Find” on a coordinate, fixed an error in decoding declinations that came out negative when they should not have.
“Verify Time” may be slightly more consistent.
Fixed a fringe case with limited pointing data, pointing to low altitudes.
When Autoguiding graphs do a right click, “Open Autoguiding log”, the x-axis is now labeled showing seconds.
Autoguiding graphs now have a splitter.
Corrected a bug that caused !SHUTTER! dark frames to fail to rotate the filter wheel.
When the Black box recorder is on, it no longer treats memory allocation failure as a “submittable” event and instead the program behaves just as it would when the BBR is off (i.e. a “Memory Error” message is displayed).
Lowered memory requirements while saving a FITS.
Rotate tool text is now visible in photos with dense star fields.
AO slew rate limit is now correctly applied.
SkyQLink no longer listed since no driver is presently available.
Bisque TCS window now saves PEC scale.
Bisque TCS window fixed a crash doing “Save all parameters” w/o a connection.
Bisque TCS window remember path to tracking log files.
Bug Fix: For southern hemisphere, TPoint polar alignment message for MA is now correct (was backward).
Bug Fix: Make automated pointing run parameters persistent w/o having to actually run the automated pointing run.
All Sky Image Link Database now has a new file format and requires a new database.
Bug Fix: Database searches for spectral types using “equal to” did not work.
Changed the toolbar button’s background color to light gray so that the “on” state is more apparent on the Mac.
Fixed a bug where Automated Pointing run options were incorrectly restored to zero upon restart which occurred when “Sort for dome” was turned on.
Fixed some of the sluggishness to “Create Pointing Targets” tab of the Automated Pointing Run window.
Fixed a crash on some systems when labeling constellations.
Fixed a crash when starting an Automated Pointing Run (introduced in the prior daily build).
Camera Add On: Ensure Apogee camera’s are listed, regardless of update route.
Fix for not being able to unpark ACL mount.
Updated FLI Camera driver.
Camera Add On: Fix for intermittent crash during imaging/autofocus.
Minor tweaks to Image Link window.
Added tool tips to every Bisque TCS control, changed text to Remove All for Sync history removal and made other minor layout modifications.
Minor tweaks to Automated Pointing Calibration Run window
Photo window cross hair now shows photo’s center.
Corrected “Factory setting” for the Slew Limits on the Paramount ME II.
Corrected text for entering the dome serial number command. (regression typo on shared pop-up menu).
Added tool tip and a status box message for the “gear” button that appears on windows for imaging system-related devices.
Updated FOVI databases.
Bug fix: Telescope limit lines are now loaded successfully (previously, the “last position” in the line, corresponding to north, was always zero degrees altitude).
Camera Add On reduced CPU usage during long exposures.
Fixed bug where not all file opens in All-Sky ImageLink set the version so floats were not being read in correctly.
Refactored Ascom mount support (replaces the x2AscomTelescope.dll driver). This should solve the issues connecting to Ascom mounts that have been reported since a recent daily build, and bring the Ascom mount into line with the other Ascom drivers in terms of design.
Improved All Sky Image Link status.
Fixed a crash caused by pressing “Preview Combined Frame” button on a empty folder under the Image Calibration Library window.
Software Bisque Camera Simulator now simulates temperature.
Large FOVI’s are now displayed at wide fields of view.
Bug fix: Filter/Focuser offsets are now correctly displayed.
Rise/set report no longer shows incorrect begin/end twilight values when event does not occur on present date.
Clarified park error message.
Daily build installer distributes all Canon OEM DLLs.
Added a new FOVI element (OAG) that has it’s own rotation input.
Send native park command when AP mount is parked from TheSkyX.
All Sky Image Link spelling correction.
TheSkyX’s autoguiding improved when a steep background gradient is present.
Added a button to the Camera Dialog’s filter wheel control; “Move Now”. This button was already available from the Video dialog, so now the two are identical. This button allows filter wheel rotation without needing to take a picture The user will be presented with a warning if they attempt to rotate the filter wheel during an exposure (camera or video).
Fixed a potential crash in All Sky Image Link.
Mirror image now shows an icon in upper left corner of the star chart.
Clients no longer receive the error “Error in loading DLL” when attempting scripting operations (on 32 bit operating systems only).
@Focus2 would not restore telescope cross hair option if error happened early when running @Focus2.dbq (i.e. the daylight option makes AtFocus2.dbq result in no object found).
Getting the longitude from an LX200 compatible mount no longer results in a command failed error message.
Fixed a bug where the magnitude for asteroids was wrong.
TPoint calibration runs have the “Telescope name” default to the name of the currently selected mount (use to be the short name from the mount driver).
On the Enter Coordinates tab of the Navigation window, the “Center Chart on RA/Dec” button didn’t take into account nutation (error of a few arcseconds).
Fixed case sensitive URL to Celestron downloads site.
A bug that only affected custom mounts, using Bisque TCS, configured as a fork, where slews missed with a fixed offset on one side of the meridian. (The bug does not apply to Paramount mounts.)
Fixed a bug where selecting “SBIG FW-8 STL” wouldn’t move the filter.
Distribute filterwheel.txt.
Distribute AtFocus2.DBQ fix to “File not found” error running @Focus2 with AutoSlew/AutoExposure turned on.
Fixed a regression bug slewing NexStar mounts to negative declinations did not work.
@Focus2 incorrectly logged subframe option twice.
Image Link now saves WCS when operating on multiple files.
Fixed a bug where aborting UCAC compilation put TheSkyX in sleep mode.
Autoguiding clarification – show the units on the Calibrate Autoguider window for Relays vs. Direct Guide.
The “AutoSave focus images” checkbox works as expected.
Running @Focus2 no longer incorrectly changes the “Crosshair Option” to “No”.
The autoguiding/focus 3D star plot is no longer black on non OpenGL 2+ videos (it use to crash).
Exercise Mount works under all circumstances.
Sidereal tracking stays turned off.
Dome Add On: the dome aligns to telescope even when OTA lower then counterweights.
Attempting to autoguide with SBIG remote guide head would always, incorrectly result in the error 565 “Autoguider calibration is required…” even after a successful calibration.
@Focus2 now converges consistently.
Photos with low signal should be displayed correctly (appeared inverted).
Description of the angular size of Mars is now correct (4-15 arcseconds, not arcminutes) in the Angular Size of Mars Tour.
Minor pictures window changes.
“Take Photo” and “Abort Camera” available as custom toolbar commands.
ASCOM Focuser changes: a) Fixed a display error for the current position of relative focusers b) Implicit connections (i.e., move without first connecting) no longer causes strange focuser movement c) Commands to move a focuser by 0 steps no longer fail (but do nothing) d) Fixed move command for focuser drivers that block on MoveTo rather than returning immediately (RoboFocus should work now)
Asteroid orbits can be displayed on the Solar System window.
Dark limb of Exaggerated moon is now opaque (was transparent).
Added a tooltip for each Graph on the TPoint window.
The moon’s size is no longer exaggerated at fields of view of less than 90 degrees.
Added the ability to draw the lower telescope limit line with a “Follow telescope” option.
Filter wheel con/disconnect buttons plus device name and setup button appear at the top of the filter wheel control.
All Target based sky commands (center, frame, slew to, etc.) are disabled if there is no current target for the rare case of having just started TheSkyX and no object has yet been found or clicked on. The old behavior was confusing, go to Find, type “Venus” and click Center/Frame/Slew – no object found error resulted.
It is okay now to home the Paramount from the joystick while TheSkyX is connected. Prior to this build, pointing errors may have resulted if the Paramount was homed from the joystick while TheSkyX was connected.
On the Bisque TCS window, the “hours beyond meridian” now has a correct maximum value of 2.5 (for MX’s), the “hours beyond meridian” displays the correct value when the “OTA on the west side of pier” radio button is clicked (it use to incorrectly display the east value, although the “Set To This Value” was/is correct), the slew log is updated only when necessary, not constantly.
Fixed default min/max slew limit values for the Paramount MX which were broken in a prior daily build.
Edited the descriptions for several optional SDBs.
The About window shows the version and build for *the* executable being run, not a hardcoded to the executable “TheSkyX.exe” which presented confusion when running renamed TheSkyX.exe.
Fixed a bug with Paramounts where turning off sidereal tracking wouldn’t stick.
Orion Star Shoot x2 camera driver is now distributed.
Improved accuracy of NEOs.
Modulate the transparency of bright, color images at wide fields.
TPoint Add On automatically disables tracking adjustments on the ProTrack tab when starting a new model.
Rotators may now synchronize their mechanical angle to their actual position angle. This may be done manually in the Rotator dialog, or automatically using a new button under the “FOV Options” tab of Image Link (after successfully linking an image). Please note that if this is attempted without the rotator linked, a rotator position of 0 will be assumed.
The rotator dialog display may be toggled between showing mechanical angles or position angles.
Rotators now display their current angle (or position angle) to two digits of decimal precision.
Version 2.2 of the Pyxis rotator plugin. The plugin will now automatically detect what type of Pyxis it is talking to, so the option to toggle between 2″ and 3″ modes has been removed from the configuration GUI. More importantly, the plugin now implements high-precision rotation mode for rotators whose firmware supports it (2″ rotators at 2.03 or greater, and 3″ rotators at 3.4 or greater). Pyxis rotators may now also abort a rotation in progress. However, this should be done in emergency situations only, as the Pyxis must be homed following an aborted rotation.
Automated pointing calibration run displays “Retry X of Y” when appropriate.
Fixed the Windows keyboard accelerators on several windows.
Fixed a bug that prevented some customers from being able to “Exercise” their Paramount.
Fixed a bug that prevented setting Paramount soft limits in the southern hemisphere. Also fixed a bug when setting soft limits with “Set to current” when the OTA was on the west.
Pyxis rotator plugin now allows the user to select the rotator model and home-on-connect behavior via a configuration window.
Automated pointing runs, with camera AutoSave on, have images saved underneath “date-based subfolder” if this option is turned on.
Stars will not drift off screen in Terrestrial Sphere mode when zoomed in less than 3 degrees.
Ignore errors on TCFS with no temperature probe connected.
Separated Pyxis rotator entries for the 2″ and 3″ models and moved both to the “Optec” manufacturer. This update will continue to work with the 2.00 and earlier firmware versions, but will allow 2.01 (and on) to use the correct step-size for the two models.
Fixed typo in FITS header.
Added a wait cursor when connecting camera.
Fix for isolated case when unable to save PEC to a Paramount with error 21002 followed by 213.
TCFS driver fix – poor com would incorrectly cause “Not linked” error.
The Paramount’s dynamic flip hour angle now accommodates TPoint modeling. Clears up unintuitive behavior for slews very close to the flip hour angle.
Updated locations database (McDonald Obs.)
TPoint polar alignment report now shows sigma to one decimal place.
Non-stellar object fill type is now updated and saved correctly.
Fixed missing period in polar align report.
Fixed a bug using the Camera Add On connected to “CCDSoft’s Camera” with AutoDark on and AutoSave on. Photo’s would save with “NoAutoDark” included in the file name but they were indeed light frames.
Fixed a bug where selecting a new focuser would incorrectly display an error message “No device selected”.
Fixed a bug where attempting to move a TCF-S3 beyond 7000 would incorrectly give “Limit Exceeded” error.
Fixed a bug where TCFS only gave the option to move 100 or 1000 steps.
Fixed three bugs when using advanced autosave filenames: a) Exposure time in the file name wasn’t correct when doing automated pointing runs (resultant FITS file was correct) b) Temperature in the file name was zero if temperature control was off. c) Filter Name in the file name was always blank.
Turning PEC on/off from TheSkyX does not alter Gemini PEC data.
Fixed a bug that caused Automated Pointing Runs to behave incorrectly (introduced in build 5837).
Date-based subfolder is now noon based as tool tip documented (was mid-night based).
Fixed a bug introduced in a prior daily build where controls in the Auto Contrast setup window didn’t disable correctly.
Fixed a bug where the ImageLink image display didn’t show Light Sources even when checked until after a forced redraw (i.e. resize).
Fixed a bug introduced in daily build 5837 that caused Automated Pointing Runs to fail.
Fixed a bug when TheSkyX Camera Add On used CCDSoft’s Camera the temperature setpoint was incorrectly displayed as -100.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build where Take Photo would occasionally report “command in progress”.
Fixed two possible crashes associated with FOVI manipulation related to the new rotator link options.
Fixed a bug that with the “ACL Dome” driver that prevented TheSkyX from connecting.
Prevent a crash from occurring if a user toggles one of the new checkboxes after changing FOV display modes.
Fixed a bug introduced in an earily daily build where Image Link would incorrectly fail if FITS key XPIXSIZE was not present (XPIXSIZE is not required for Image Link).
Connection to Meade Autostar III telescopes should work now (regression serial port flag change).
Fixed a bug where disconnecting then reconnected to a Paramount MX would cause the MX to slew at half speed (rebooting the Paramount MX would return full speed slews).
ProTrack no longer makes tracking worse when a TPoint model has more than 30 terms (which is not very common).
Temma synchronization for some negative declinations no longer fail.
Text error correction (inactive camera coolers were showing Off).
On Windows, the default horizon is now selected the first time the Horizon & Atmosphere window is opened (which avoids potentially confusing behavior when no horizon is selected).
No longer disable TPoint’s Super Model button when Super Model is not possible; instead allow the button to be pressed and give descriptive information why Super Model is not possible.
Fix possible bug using configuring proxy server.
Image link gets center RA/Dec of DSS photos when OBJCTRA, OBJCTDEC keywords are not in the FITS header (fixes Image Links not working on DSS images).
Attempting to connect to hardware that relies on Microsoft COM at the driver level would no longer causes the message “You are about to start a second instance of TheSkyX” when the COM driver was not installed.
Fixed a bug where the Canon driver didn’t show under Windows.
Declination telescope limits now work for southern hemisphere.
Calibrate button text changed to Calibrate Joystick on Bisque TCS window.
Greek smooth moving labels work on Windows.
If camera autosave is on during an automated pointing run, the images are saved under a folder Automated Pointing Run in the camera autosave folder.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build where saving a FITS photo would result in the error “Unable to complete operation because one or more files are read only.”
Fixed a bug where the wrong sample was ignored when clicking on a TPoint orthographic plot.
TPoint orthographic plots support graphics input.
Fixed a bug where the wrong sample was ignored when clicking on a TPoint orthographic plot.
Fixed a bug on some TPoint graphs that the sign of what is plotted flips beyond the pole, which it should not.
PDS update.
Fixed a bug introduced in a prior daily build that caused the second AutoDark to be all black.
Allow handbox control checkbox on the Meade window states Autostar III only now.
Corrected spelling of anomaly in object information.
On the Manage Observing List window, changed text of Column Setup button to Report Setup.
Telescope cross hair is not plotted at 0,0 when off screen.
ProTrack is now strictly correct for MX (was using ME values that were very slightly wrong).
ProTrack applies without ever having to display the TPoint Add On window. Prior to this build, the TPoint Add On window had to be displayed at least once per TheSkyX session. This is no longer necessary. For example, start TheSkyX, connect to a Paramount, Open TPoint Addd On Window, enable ProTrack, close TPoint Add on Window. Exit TheSkyX, restart, Connect, slew to an object and ProTrack is “doing its thing” without TPoint Add On window having ever been displayed.
No longer necessary to slew twice on arcsecond slews with ProTrack is on.
ProTrack maintains telescope cross on target even with extensive Super Models active.
Chart status displays corrected telescope coordinates.
If a dome is parked but coupled to the mount, the dome respects the park state and not attempt to slew to follow the scope.
Use a photo for the stick pin on Earth map.
Include elevation when double-clicking location on Earth map.
Updated Mt. Evans Obs. latitude, longitude.
Corrected PICTYPE comment in FITS header.
Scripting ImageLink::execute() command works on the Mac.
When a dome had poor communication, invoking any command would incorrectly give “Command in progress.”
Fixed a bug where the fits INSTUME keyword was blank when acquired using third party, X2 camera drivers.
Fixed a bug where the fits MOUNT keyword was blank when using third party, X2 mounts drivers.
PDS TLE fix.
Regression bug fix: TCP/IP is displayed in the telescope port list.
Windows Daily Build installer is a single executable that does not need to be run as an Administrator.
Mac Daily Build installer uses PackageMaker.
Flush serial port for Sky Commander, SGT, Gemini and Celestron mounts (Wi-Fi)
Autosave path is now created with mkpath rather than mkdir, allowing target directories that would require the creation of parent directories first.
TheSkyX defaults to AutoSave/imager, and currently that fails on fresh installs unless the user manually create the “AutoSave” folder.
Fixed Mac-specific scripting bug (ImageLink.scale type definition wrong).
Revised ImageLink.js to use ImageLinkResults.imageScale.
Corrected a bug that caused autosaves of images to fail (without informing the user) when the target name contains a ‘:’ character (i.e., any GSC or UCAC catalog object, and probably others).
For asteroids w/o H and G magnitude parameters, default the magnitude to 30.
Camera Add On, Aperture and aperture area were reversed in FITS header.
Save Gemini HC mode.
Temma turn on tracking from script.
Gemini window now displays and maintains the correct Hand Paddle Mode.
The current tab on the Gemini window is now preserved.
Gemini driver now prompts to home the mount upon connection with the telescope.
Dome slit only renders in stereographic projection. Attempted fix of non-functioning dome slit on some graphics card.
Import sky6 files maintains rotation angle when appropriate.
Allow CCDSoft to see TheSkyX targets using PushTo mounts.
Undo ReCal is now enabled after finishing recalibration.
Supermodel button is disabled for recal model.
For the auto-import of TheSky6 files introduced in the prior daily build, the File Open window now also lists *.sky files by default.
Supported mounts now list the Deep Space Navigator and Orion Sky Quest.
On Vista/Windows 7, the daily build installer prompts to be run as administrator when not.
The daily build installer is digitally signed.
TheSkyX.exe file distributed by the daily build installed is digitally signed.
The longitude displayed in TheSky’s Location, Date, Time windows is now correct for iOptron mounts.
Removed unnecessary parenthesis in SGT alignment star list.
TheSkyX now does a basic, automatic, import of TheSky6 files. At this time, the location, date, time, and Sky Chart position recorded in the sky6 file is imported (TheSky6’s font, line, fill colors are not (yet) imported). 1) TheSkyX’s File, Open window now lists *.skyx and *.sky files (TheSkyX and TheSky6 files respectively). 2) Choosing a .sky file automatically imports the file, changes the extension to .skyx and does not alter the original file.
Fixed two overlapping error codes with CCDSoft.
It is now “easy” to abort an exposure delay.
Changes to parameters that affect Paramount slew speed based on temperature are now applied immediately (changes to this setting previously required a disconnect/reconnect from the control system).
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior build where slewing a mount turned tracking off.
Changes for PDS.
Fix two misspellings (typos) on synchronization dialog.
Expose sky6DirectGuide to the TheSkyX’s java Script engine (and sockets as well).
Changed reading of text file for X2 driver list to accommodate both Mac and or Windows native text files.
Fixed bug where “waning” text for the moon on the object information window was wrong.
By default, in the hardwarelist.txt, put the space into MapsTo field for X2 developers. Faster dome slit rendering with OpenGL. Also put back dome shading removed in prior daily build.
Fixed a bug introduced in prior daily build 5249 that prevented Paramount southern hemisphere slews.
For GEMs, when beyondThePole(), syncing into an existing TPoint model gives better results.
In the TPoint window, “Term Abbreviation” is now “Term”.
Modified the TPoint polar alignment report to reference knob tics (not arcminutes) for azimuth adjustments on the MX.
Fixed a bug where the Polar Alignment report was reporting the incorrect azimuth adjustment for MX’s when the adjustment was less than one full turn (was reporting only half the required value when less than one turn).
Enhanced the accuracy of syncing into a an existing model with the Paramount MX (not very common).
Display an error if Read All Parameters ever has one in Bisque TCS.
Lessen the likelihood of Paramount errors with “bad Id” or “bad sequence”.
“Socket connection refused” error was incorrectly mapped to “Socket first error”.
Implemented PECArray in TheSkyXAdaptor.
Better fps when rending dome slit on chart.
Some TPoint window clean up.
Some Bisque TCS window clean up.
Updated AP default backlash compensation to 0.
Added .mpl extension for listing imported asteroid text files.
Changed advanced setting from ‘Comets/MPLs By Name’ to ‘Comets and Asteroids By Nam’.
Updated list of supported mounts.
Updated FOVI list.
Fixed a bug introduced in the prior daily build that made ERR_MKS_MAIN_AT_LIMIT more likely instead of less likely.
Changed “Comets/MPLs” to Comets and Asteroids in the User Guide’s Advanced Preferences tab.
Likely fixed a rare occurrence of Paramount slews producing error ERR_MKS_MAIN_AT_LIMIT (22007).
Added addition logging to isolate ERR_MKS_MAIN_AT_LIMIT.
Put reasonable bounds for pressure on Atmospheric Refraction Parameters entry.
The reminder window that “netbook” type settings were made is now modeless.
Fixed a bug where RASCOMTele.SlewToAzAlt was always Asynchronous.
Allow Dragging Flip Hour Angle option is now saved and restored.
Bisque TCS Window clean up 1) no longer bring up edit item double clicking on tree roots 2) don’t allow editing items in show status tab.
Bisque TCS Window, Utilities Tab, Hand Controller, Calibrate button now works. Press this button *once* to Calibrate the joystick – without calibrating the joy stick, doing a FindHome might immediately abort. The common symptom would be the telescope status would immediately go from “Finding Home” to “Not Homed” (more likely in cold temperatures).
Movie fixes.
Movie making with more error checking.
Fixed ME orientation for the virtual mount when in southern latitudes.
Ability to bring asteroid YUH into TheSkyX as a satellite using ephemeris data and track on it.
Fixed slew limit error for Southern hemisphere slews: must clear synchronization history and restore control system defaults.
Added Meade LX200 ACF to telescope list.
Added OK/Cancel buttons to Observer Log dialog.
Cleaned up Observer Log (repeated word, always add observer to text box, other minor changes).
TheSkyXAdaptor.RASCOMTele.SetTracking() is now implemented identically to TheSky6.
Object paths now save phase for each point.
Fixed bug where labels were incorrect.
Tour dialog box tweaks.
Telescope commands tweaks.
When parking programmatically through the RASCOMTele.Park() interface, don’t disconnect if there is an error.
When the Bisque TCS logging is on, don’t clear the log upon disconnect.
Corrected a limit error when slewing a GT-1100S’s with TheSkyX.
Fits keywords APTAREA APTDIA were swapped when acquiring images with the Camera Add On.
Fixed memory leak with new FITS display engine introduced in prior daily build.
Added Copy button to Communications Log window.
Epoch to Equinox in Navigation window in Edit Comet window.
Hide Graphics View tab on Export window.
Removed duplicate accelerators in Edit Comet dialog.
Added an Edit Attributes button to the Custom Horizon tab.
Target Object was missing from the list of exported Sky Chart layers list.
When downloading satellites resulted in an error, the error message was behind the window.
Added a Log Slews checkbox that allows logging to be turned on/off directly from Logging window on the Bisque TCS.
Updated sbpyxisrotator driver.
Super Model no longer changes ME more than it ought to.
DST applied properly for sites in Southern Australia now.
Fixed a bug where the guide rate could not be set in the Bisque TCS.
Focuser textual status wasn’t always correct in the Imaging System Setup window.
Implement built-in focuser settings generally so that it applies to other built in focusers like ap, lx200, gemini, teleapi, etc.
Minimum size of mount control on the Virtual Observatory window is 150 x 150 pixels.
Virtual mount selection is saved/restored.
Initialize iOptron firmware version.
Added instructions for adjusting Virtual Mount to the Virtual Mount window.
Alphabetize mount list.
Saving all parameters to the legacy MKS3000 prevented subsequent communications.
LX200 classic now uses high precision positions.
TheSkyX displays the correct declination for iOptron mounts (missing leading zero in this protocol caused decs to be “incorrect”).
Virtual mount’s latitude wasn’t correct.
Find multiple harmonics in MX/ME periodic error.
Fixed a bug that prevented saving PEC data to the Paramount (introduced in build 5080).
Display the Paramount’s firmware version consistently.
ACL Dome: a) Allow setting the acl address for an ACL dome. b) Now defaults to not needing elevation.
Paramount’s Exercise mount defaults to 80% max slew rate (was 99%).
Changing the Paramount’s maximum slew rate percentage in the Bisque TCS window applies immediately (before this build, a disconnect/reconnect was required before a maximum slew rate change was applied).

October, 2011 – TheSkyX Version 10.1.11 Build 5080

Added Paramount MX support.
Added Virtual Mount command to Tools pop-up on the Telescope window that simulates the telescope.
Added the ability to automatically save photos (Camera Add On).
Added a focuser simulator (Camera Add On).
Added a filter wheel support (Camera Add On).
Added SBIG ST-i support (Camera Add On).
Added Pyxis rotator support.
Under Tools, Run Java Script added enable/disable debugger. Scripts run over a socket that threw an exception without a try catch would launch the debugger – solutions are to disable the debugger or put a try catch around script code intended to be run over a socket.
Improved the RunQuery.js java script example.
The fits header is dynamically populated when photo is acquired.
Added the Pole Indicators and Zenith Indicator SDBs to the Optional SDBs.
Updated common star names sky database.
Updated Common Non-Stellar sky database.
Updated FOVI Detectors (Canon models).
Added the following (additional) information to the fits header: LST, latitude, longitude, instrument, mount, telescope az/alt, hour angle, beyond the pole, air mass. observer, origin, telescope description, focal length, aperture area, aperture diameter.
Dome control window displays the selected dome.
Dome control windows has a “Show Log” when device supports logger interface.
X2 optional mount interfaces are re-queried after connection.
When selecting a TPoint calibration point either 1) graphically by clicking on the point on the TPoint scatter diagram or 2) by selecting it in TPoint list, the corresponding point on the sky display is highlighted with the target bulls eye and identified.
Documented TheSkyXAction object.
Dome is now polled for azimuth when parked.
When adding a pointing sample, an error message is displayed if the point is too low.
On Windows, when possible, show friendly names associated with COM ports.
Added the ability to put a background image on the camera, dome and telescope dialogs by placing images named camera.png, dome.png and mount.png respectively in the root of “/Software Bisque/TheSkyX Professional Edition” (exit and restart). Sample.
Allow larger semi-major axis for asteroids so that orbital elements for trans-Neptunian objects like Sedna are accepted.
Added an “Atmospheric Refraction Parameters” button and window on the Imaging System Setup window (Telescope > Telescope Setup).
Added “Sync back into model” type of TPoint re-calibration.
Added an option to recalibrate portable mounts.
Added a state to TPoint calibration runs.
Add an “Undo Recal” button to TPoint.
Released a “TheSkyXDailyBuildInstaller” to simplify installation of TheSkyX Daily Builds.
Paramount’s can be exercised for up to 1000 cycles.
Multiple satellite files can now be imported.
Added Set Lunar Rate and Refresh buttons to Temma window.
Added sky6Dome scriptable object.
Temma supports SetTrackingRates command when possible.
Moon, Sun, and planets can now be drawn transparently.
Added keyboard accelerator for the Field of View Indicators command.
Added the Check for Updates command to all Editions (Pro, Serious, Student, First Light and Theater).
Added ability to set AP Slew Rate. Rate is restored each session.
AP Backlash compensation settings are saved and restored each session.
The OTA end of the declination axis for AP mounts is always on the West side when Slewing to the AP park position #1 from TheSkyX.
Most recent tracking rate sent to the mount is displayed on AP window.
Implemented software-based parking for the AP mounts so that third-party applications can park it via script.
Added : /Resources/Common/User/Java Scripts/MountTrackingOff.js script.

Changes and Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug introduced in prior daily build where TPoint displayed RMS PSD as zero.
Default the *first* recalibration attempt to be for a permanent mount, from then on, the recalibration type is persistent.
Show “Run Date” for a TPoint calibration run.
To avoid confusion, bring “Pointing Data” tab forward when appropriate (as opposed to “Recalibration Data”).
sky6RASCOMTele.SlewToAzAlt now obeys the Asynchronous property (prior to this, all SlewToAzAlt were asynchronous).
Don’t allow identifying a TPoint calibration point unless it is visible (either by path or point).
Choosing Connect from the Telescope menu, prompts to Find Home if not homed.
Regression fix: Uncommented FindMosaic so that mosaics can be accessed via script
On Preferences window, “criterion” replaces “criteria”, For the Bisque TCS, a) Fixed crash pressing Revert with no sync history, Updated device and driver descriptions based on selection, b) Flip HA now is in hours, c) Bug Fix – turning off tracking on the MX status says “Tracking Off”, d) Added some wiggle room for TheSkyX’s UI to say “Tracking Off”
Graphical pointing samples were plotted in the wrong location – did not affect pointing, just a display item (the object info was therefore corrected as well).
New pointing samples were added to the top of the list instead of the bottom, now added correctly.
TPoint displays “N/A” for RMS and PSD when appropriate.
To avoid confusion, after finishing a TPoint recalibration, the scatter diagram is for the recalibration data, not the original pointing data.
Finishing a calibration run didn’t always set all terms to fixed, it does now.
Fixing a term no longer results in the term going to zero.
Can now find 61 cyg.
TPoint re-calibration did not work when initiated without using the TPoint dialog’s Start calibration button (like pressing “Add Pointing Sample” with an existing model in place).
1×1 Mosaics no longer cause a crash.
Don’t allow a scale of zero for image link.
Image Link now always shows a success or failure message in the status text (on failure the error description goes into status text).
Set/get southern hemisphere site information to/from Gemini correctly.
Bug fix for dynamic telescope menu.
Added ability to update firmware to Bisque TCS window.
Firmware updates are checked based on the filename.
Increase transparency of limit regions on the Mac.
Updated default settings for AutoPointingRun.sxt and DSS.sxt.
Daily Build installer didn’t work if unzipped to a folder using long filenames.
Added speed percentage to exercise mount window on the Bisque TCS window.
When clicking on TPoint graphic to identify pointing samples, only one sample is highlighted.
Bug fix – when clicking on an “TPoint calibration point” the object id target bulls eye didn’t coincide with the graphic at small FOVIs (high magnification). Did not affect pointing, just a display fix.
The textual azimuth displayed for an identified “TPoint calibration point” was incorrect. Note, this does not affect pointing and would primarily cause confusion for those attempting to correlate a already collected pointing sample with azimuth/altitude using the displayed azimuth (the graphically plotted azimuth for the point was correct).
Display error message if the format of a pasted PEC table is incorrect.
Added CR/LF to exported (Copy) PEC table for Mac happiness.
Bisque TCS control text tweaks.
Added CR/LF to Bisque TCS text files (not just LF) for Mac compatibility.
Command text tweaks.
The Image Link Search tab is forward by default (so .ui changes don’t put, say, All Sky tab first)
When using the new gear icon, the wrong preference page might have been displayed.
Added a device setup “”gear icon next to device name on control dialogs.
When No OpenGL is selected, show more meaningful messages for commands that require OpenGL.
Tweak wording of Preference options.
TPoint graphic is now dark red in night vision.
Prevent choosing a SBIG filter wheel unless the camera is an SBIG camera.
Filter wheel filter selection goes blank when connecting to a filter wheel with less filters then a previously connected filter that had, say the last filter selected.
On Windows, wasn’t initializing the filter wheel and rotator threads for possible COM calls in case COM used in x2 driver implementations.
When scripting sky6Dome, errors on asynchronous operations throw an exception in the context of the corresponding monitoring function.
When scripting TheSkyX’s mount, errors on asynchronous operations are now thrown within the context of IsSlewComplete.
Made camera’s AutoSave file name match CCDSoft’s convention w/r/t when AutoDark is turned on.
Image scroll bars appear when reusing a image going from small to large or large to small.
Added changes for Centurion to mount list.
Updated filter wheel, mount and detector geometry list (file may not be included with daily build).
Parking Gemini now also turns tracking off.
Bug fix: camera’s status text might become blank after encountering an error when attempting to connect.
Added and “Auto Selection” for SBIG filter wheels (file may not be included with daily build).
Possibly fixed erroneous ProTrack display values by limiting declination near poles.
Fixed a crash when taking a photo after aborting then changing binning to result in a larger image. Also fixed a misaligned image when taking a photo after aborting then changing binning so that had a smaller image resulted.
The state of the “Fit To Window” option of the FITS viewer is maintained while the windows stays open (across open/close and when a new CCD image appears).
Satellite sgp4sdp4 code fix.
OutputSplash.txt has more information on error to aid in debugging.
Updated remaining minor planet center URL references
Fixed a bug that would cause Image Links to fail when doing automated pointing calibration runs.
When the *camera* simulated a DSS photo, going to the fits header displayed in the FITSViewer was for the 3 HDU, not the primary HDU.
Click to find an object no longer removes focus from the Camera tab.
Updated TheSkyX’s default URLs for the Minor Planet Center downloads (from .org to .net)
Any error that prevented start up while creating TheSkyX’s model would incorrectly by mapped to error code 1.
Gemini window controls are now updated upon connect/disconnect.
Attempting to open a .hrz file that was generated by TheSky6 (and is incompatible with TheSkyX) from the Telescope Limits window no longer causes a crash.
TheSkyX would crash on start or when choosing Tools, Image Link. Made opening an all sky database robust (*.allsky), as customers where choosing, say a FIT file for the all sky database file.
ProTrack clean up: status not updated after disconnection.
TCFS settings now persistent.
Updated sky6DataWizard documentation.
When editing a comet’s orbital element data, TheSkyX now correctly shows the epoch day when the value exceeds 31 (for example: Hale-Bopp).
Added text “CWD” (counterweight down) to Gemini’s “Slew to Start Position” button.
Added configurable park position for Gemini mounts.
Put a run time limit on any log file of 0.5 MB.
Exposed sky6Raven object to java script engine (oversight).
Fixed crashes when TheSkyX was *not* running OpenGL and CCDSoft did a Comparison Star Chart or Insert Minor Planets or running TheSkyXGrabScreen.js : OpenGL is required for these features.
Introduced in daily build 4626 when connecting to some SBIG cameras would result in “SBIG driver: Bad parameter.”
CCDSoft’s @Focus2 would fail if either the “slew to” or “auto exposure” options where turned on which required integration with TheSkyX.
*Selectable* focuser support – focuser support existed previously, but didn’t allow an ad hoc focuser.
The SerXInterface of the X2 Standard allows parity to be configured in third-party drivers.
The FilterWheelDriverInterface has been published for the X2 Standard.
For java script, the result of sky6DataWizard.RunQuery now resolves to a sky6ObjectInformation (was not a problem on Windows via COM).
New Zealand DST now begins on the first Sunday of April.
Fixed a bug that would cause TheSkyX to crash when editing the date and time format to include a large number of abbreviations.
Moon’s features are no longer found when the Moon was not on the Sky Chart.
Include a note about the differences in TheSkyX vs. Telescope Time Zone on the Location,Date,Time window.
Setting a Celestron hand paddle’s location is correct the southern hemisphere.
Changed BisqueTCS dialog to show Common and Advanced settings.
Fixed getting bad temperature from the Paramount MX.
Handle error condition caused by unplugging USB Paramount ME/MX more gracefully.
Fixed regression bug that prevented Temma’s tracking rate from being turned on via script.
Save and restore the state of PEC for the Paramount across exit/restart of TheSkyX.
Cycles/second displayed for version 2 satellite tracking is now correct.
Drawing the horizon with the telescope works correctly.
Save and restore the state of PEC for the Paramount across exit/restart of TheSkyX.
Fixed random hang at “Displaying Photo” with TheSkyX camera add on.
Paramount obeys Home After Connect option.
Paramount now restores the state of ProTrack.
Slew prior now works correctly.
Fixed crash creating the All Sky Image link database.
TheSkyX now retrieves a “more accurate” version of OpenGL for NVIDIA graphics hardware.
On Labels window, changed the wording on the checkbox option from “Number of Labels on Chart” to “Maximum Number of Labels on Sky Chart”.
TheSkyX’s DATEOBS keyword no longer include the “Z”.
Fixed a Qt regression bug where QFileInfo’s isWritable now returns false for files that do not exist, so that new movie files can now be created.
Updated movie creation error messages.
Fixed a display bug for southern hemisphere longitudes on AP mounts.
Disable Super Model during recalibration runs.
Enabled settings for the Paramount’s built-in focuser which allowing changing the current position, min and max limits.
Show “Run Date” for a TPoint calibration run.
To avoid confusion, bring “Pointing Data” tab forward when appropriate (as opposed to “Recalibration Data”).
Changed default viewing orientation of the virtual mount to be in front of the mount looking south.
Don’t allow identifying a TPoint calibration point unless it is visible (either path or point).
Choosing Connect from the Telescope menu, prompt to Find Home if not homed.
Show “Recalibration” TPoint graph when appropriate.
Fixed a crash when pressing Revert with no sync history.
Turning off tracking on the MX status says “Not Tracking”
Updated device and driver descriptions based on selection.
Paramount’s flip HA is displayed in hours (not minutes).
Updated common star label database /Resources/Common/Core SDBs/star labels.SDBX and /Resources/Common/Core SDBs/star labels.txt.
Changed Paramount MX default “flip hour angle” to 1.5 hours from 2.5 hours
Added command for programming MKS 5000 firmware,
Added “Tonight’s Observing Parameters” dialog under Imaging System Setup. Allows a TPoint pointing run to have a set of observing parameters and TheSkyX to have a “nightly” set of observing parameters. Allows a pointing run where star ra,dec is identical to scope ra,dec when setting pressure to zero. (IOW, TheSkyX’s general purpose refraction calculations are accessible via the new UI.)
Changed the criteria as to when to apply telescope modeling if one or more terms is fixed (critical for recalibration case).
Fixed a bug where graphical pointing samples were plotted in the wrong location (applying precession twice) – did not affect pointing, just a display item (the object info was therefore corrected as well).
Allow re-cal on 15 points instead of 50 (makes testing recalibration easier).
When dragging the flip hour angle using the star chart graphic, the Bisque TCS window reflects the new value.
Bug fix for AP in southern hemisphere using TPoint.
LX200 sync command now more flexible for other like protocols.
Don’t fail connection for LX200 when ACK command fails.
The Paramount ME/MX dynamic flip HA gripper now always on screen. When dragging the flip HA, the value is shown near the gripper.
Added Create Bitmap tab to Print Export dialog to TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition.
When updating Bisque TCS motor firmware files, filter for *.bin and *.out, the latter is for the MKS 4000.
Bisque TCS: edited TCS parameters go from red to black upon “Save All Parameters.”
Possibly fixed a bug where the ProTrack status could display erroneous values.
Daily Build Installer is now Mac compatible.
Daily Build Installer provided improved status messages during install.
Bug fix – LX200 remains responsive after a long period of communication.
Bug Fix – AutoDark now works for Camera Add On, X2 drivers using rm_Image.
The relay graphic on the Bisque TCS dialog is now correct.
Daily build installer will prompt for TheSkyX’s installation folder as a last resort.
Added a clear button to satellite passes.
Added text to error 22010 (invalid PEC table).
Several minor Paramount MX PEC improvements.
The Orientation of the virtual mount for the Paramount ME is now rendered correctly.

February, 2011 – TheSkyX Version 10.1.10 Build 4470

The TPoint Add On includes a Super Model feature that creates an optimal pointing model with a single button click.
TheSkyX can now perform blind, All Sky Image Links using the All Sky Image Link tab on the Image Link window. Your imaging system will never be “lost in space” again. Point your ininitialized telescope anywhere, take a photo.TheSkyX can quickly determine the exact astrometric solution for the photo. (Professional Edition only)
New and improved Moon rendering that dynamically simulates crater and terminator shadows (this feature requires OpenGL 3.0 or later. The present Moon rendering technique is applied on computers running earlier versions of OpenGL).
The Moon approximates the effects of earthshine.
TheSkyX can now display galaxies from the PGC 2011 (Hyperleda).
TheSkyX can now act as a TPC/IP server with the TCPServer command on the Tools menu. (Professional Edition only)
TheSkyX can now run and debug Java scripts using the Run Java Script on the Tools menu. (Professional Edition only)
Documentation for scriptTheSkyX released. TheSkyX Scriptable Objects documentation is available at: http://www.bisque.com/scripttheskyx.
A Check for Update command in the Help menu helps ensure you are running the most latest update.
Added Sun Transit to Set Special Times menu on the Date and Time window.
Meade telescope driver provides simulated, software-based handbox key presses to access any handbox command.
Meade telescope driver now includes the hardware-specific Park command.
Added support for SBIG STX model cameras to the Camera Add On.
Added support for SBIG ST-4000XM cameras to the Camera Add On
Released X2GUI type interfaces, documenation can be found at www.bisque.com/x2.
TheSkyX can now use the Meade telescope driver’s native Park command to park telescope (by pressing the Park button on the Meade window). Using the native park command is required for proper shut down and subsequent mount initialization.
Add a general purpose, thread safe, function for going from mount mechanical coordinates to topocentric (the Adjust T case). (Professional Edition only)
Added a way to get to beyondThePole from the RASCOMTele interface (TheSkyX only, not TheSky6). (Professional Edition only)

**********

Option Explicit

Const beyondThePoleCmd = 11

Dim result

Dim T

Set T = CreateObject("TheSkyXAdaptor.RASCOMTele")

T.Connect

Result = T.DoCommand(beyondThePoleCmd,"")

MsgBox Result

**********

Added Civil and Nautical Twilight Times to Set Special Times list.
Astronomical, Civil and Nautical Twilight Times are shown in the Sun report.
TheSkyX now periodically updates the NexStar’s tracking rate setting (to, for example, detect and display changes made directly on the hand paddle).
Improved Moon’s libration calculations.
Added/Updated Alignment Star Databases: a) Argo Navis Alignment Stars, b) Arp Globular Clusters c) Gemini Alignment Stars d) iOptron Alignment Stars e) JMI Alignment Stars f) JMI SuperMax Alignment Stars g) Live Video Calibration Stars TMB h) Meade Alignment Star LabelsX i) NexStar Alignment Stars j) Orion Intelliscope Alignment Stars k) Sky Commander legacy Alignment Stars l) SkyCommander Alignment Stars m) Tele Vue Sky Tour Alignment Stars n) TPoint Stars o) Ultima 2000 Alignment Stars p) Vixen-Sphinx Alignment Stars
Changes and Bug Fixes
Updated radio source SDB.
Updated Double Double Companion Stars.
TheSkyXAdaptor update that must be paired with TheSkyX.exe: methods alphabetized for (better/easier) “ScriptTheSkyX” documentation.
Improved Image Link Results report layout.
DST end date for UK after 1996 is now correct.
Updated star labels (corrected two misspellings)
Updated telescope and detector databases.
Changed “Chart Rotation” to “Position Angle”.
Added data for additional Takahashi scope (FC-76), and two additional Canon cameras (500D/550D).
Adjusted position of Rosette color photo and common name label.
Added Double star companion SDBX.
Reading in a set of Bisque TCS Parameters from a TCS file now works.
The Slew Between Limits command now slews the RA axis in both directions.
Updated the URL to get comets/minor planets by name from IAU.
Laser pointer now highlights Iridium flares (regression).
The Whats Up? report no longer includes solar system objects that are below the horizon.
Zoom Tool now works when clicking inside the elliptical regions above and below the + and: signs, respectively.
Fixed an issue where Paramount ME/DirectGuide using live video would occasionally fail.
Starting a pointing calibration run no longer filters bright stars automatically. There is now a buttons on the Pointing Calibration Run tab of the TPoint Add On window that can be used to Show Only Bright Stars, which makes collecting and recording calibration data less error prone.
Show Pointing Samples checkbox is now always in sync on the Celestial Objects tab and TPoint Add On window.
Fixed an issue that prevented NGC and PGC labels from appearing on the Sky Chart.
Fixed an issue that prevented the Digitized Sky Survey thumbnails and ellipses from appearing on the Sky Chart.
Fixed plotting of SDB photos when No OpenGL is turned on.
Native UCAC3 can be now be compiled properly (regression).
Changed the Eclipse Viewer so that the eclipse list always starts on the first eclipse of the selected type.
When searching for lunar eclipses, TheSkyX now backs up the date by one lunation.
Going to Camera, Settings show the message “This device has no additional settings” when appropriate.
Made minor changes to Photo menu.
Possible bug fix to parking: (was writing as an int and read as a double).
The non-DST time zone is set correctly from TheSkyX for iOptron and LX200 mounts.
Fixed spelling error on satellite dialog.
Added textual string to SBIG driver errors.
Obey the “Home required for slews” TCS option for Paramounts.
Cleaned up TheSkyX’s PEC curve fitting (PrecisionPEC equivalent).
Setting the UseComputerClock Julian date didn’t work.Also fixed a bug where the StarChart’s UseComputerClock property wasn’t correct.
The To Google Map button was formatting latitude and longitude with local specific decimal point which Google does not want.
The ra dec returned by RASCOMTele interface wasn’t correct when tpoint was active.
Renamed “Fix Time to the Computer Clock” checkbox text to “Prohibit all time changes…”
Automatically turn off the “Prohibit All Time Changes…” checkbox when disconnecting the telescope.
Show HardwareInfoInterface and DriverInfoInterface for domes, cameras, rotators.
Fixed crash or memory leaks when choosing a new device (camera, dome, telescope) when the existing device was connected.
Save individual constellation options (for example, click the Zodiac button, restart and there’s restored).
Resolve an issue that could cause Image Link on Mac to crash occasionally.
Separated Status Bar and Chart Status settings and abbreviated the text labels for parameters that appear in the Status Bar.
Minimize Gemini window to fit in 600 pixel height screen.
Press Zodiac and turn on “Show constellation drawings” works.
The term’s sigma value in the TPoint Add On sigma value is shown correctly.
Fixed a bug that caused the wrong NexStar tracking rate to be set and displayed by TheSkyX (NexStar dialog).
Fixed bug setting AP mount GMT for southern hemisphere.
Fixed a bug that prevented tracking rate for LX200 to be set to zero (turn tracking off).
Minimize rounding errors when setting AP mount’s location.
Fixed a bug in ProTrack so that the pointing correction output is updated.
Fixed a bug that caused a crash when an object path was loaded.
Telescope model sets “beyond the pole” status.
TheSkyX no longer shows the message “Error 703: Cannot open file” message when the Input > Small Solar System Bodies > Asteroid (Large Database tab) > “Load Large Database Asteroids Each Time TheSkyX is Started” checkbox is turned on, and no large asteroid database file name is present.
Hawaii locations have been correctly to ingnore DST changes.
Mosaic dialog is now modeless; cleaned up some issues when creating mosaics.

September 20, 2010 – TheSkyX Version 10.1.9 Build 4160

Added an application setting to grow the Observing List up to 20,000 objects.
Changed the Tools > Object Paths dialog considerably, including changing the Animate checkbox to Interactive and addressing numerous bugs.
The mount simulator can now simulate park and unpark.
Added the Object Paths command to the Tools menu.
Fixed a bug where using the Equal To comparator in SDB queries failed due to whitespace.
Fixed position of Object Path labels.
Moon no longer disappears when its center is off the Sky Chart.
Fixed a bug where some Tycho stars were not being labeled with Extended Labeling.
Improved the orthographic plotting of horizons.
Fixed a bug where the Edit Chart Elements dialog was snapping back to the last position (restored) when the dialog was used.
Sped up the interaction when Magnitude sliders are used in Edit Chart Elements.
Fixed a bug where FlipHourAngleMinutes was showing as 0 instead of the actual value that was in ImagingSystem.ini.
Fixed a bug where the Navigate dialog showed the incorrect equatorial coordinates and constellation when moving the mouse.
Connecting to an SBIG-402 no longer results in a “No Device Selected” error.
Text (the edition feature comparison list) was incorrectly being copied to the Clipboard when TheSkyX was launched.
Fixed bug that caused some lunar eclipses to be missed.
Fixed a clipping bug for the orthographic horizon.
Fixed a trail plotting bug for satellites in Orthographic Projection.
Fixed a bug where Raven.SlewDomeToTelescope would return ERR_NOT_IMPL.
Changed Horizon Photos Dialog so the supplied horizon photos and the custom horizon photos (in Application Support folder) are separated in a tree list.
The Horizon Photos list in the Horizon & Atmosphere dialog is automatically updated when horizon photos are added to the Horizon Application Support folder.
Bug Fix: legacycominterfaces.txt didn’t include TheSkyXAdaptor.dll (relied only upon installation registration).
Improved plotting of custom horizon in Gnomonic Projection.
ProTrack tab is now available on the TPoint Add On window.
BC years can now be entered by pressing the “–” key when the year (YYYY) portion of the date/time is highlighted.
The telescope Mask FOVI transparency can now be changed on the Edit FOVI dialog.
Parking the Paramount now works.
TheSkyX.RASCOMTele’s park now disconnects the telescope like TheSky6 does.
You can now double click on the Status Bar and the Preferences dialog will be displayed with the Status Bar options.
New Feature: Mount simulator’s az/alt position is persistent.
RASCOMTele’s connect also unparks (if parked) so it behaves like TheSky6.
LX200 unpark now sets location/date/time/time.
Aborting a telescope slew with the dome coupled, didn’t abort the dome slew too.
RASCOMTele’s lastSlewError wasn’t always correct.
Changes to the Mosaic are now updated immediately, allowing interactive sizing, etc.
Added a button to save a .hrz file that is linked with a horizon photo file so that the photo file can be loaded in the proper orientation.
LX200 unpark puts in polar mode right before syncing to ra/dec of parked position.
Can now search for stars using their DM designation such as B+19 2777 for Arcturus.
Added an option to the Advanced tab of the Database Manager creates the optimized TheSkyX plot file from the native UCAC3 text files.
The angular separation that is shown on the Find dialog now recomputes continuously so that the correct value is shown when two moving objects are selected.
Changed the graphic on the Create Pointing Targets so that it is clear which “node” is which.
Large database asteroid on Sky Chart queries are no longer clipped to 18 magnitude.
Fixed a bug in the Small Screen Toolbar where keyboard input was being ignored.
Fixed a bug where the Telescope toolbar was not showing up in the list of Toolbars for customization.
Camera simulator default width and height are now both 800.
Changing the camera’s Reduction option applies to automated pointing runs without having to take a photo from the Camera tab.
Fixed bug where Moon’s shadow could not be turned off.
Fixed OpenGL flickering problem that occurs on some graphics cards/driver combinations.
Optionally have AutoDark subtraction use all available processor cores.
Optionally allow mount drivers’ establish link to be called from the user interface thread, rather than a background thread. See LinkFromUIThreadInterface documentation.
Added the Slew Prior command. This command appears in the Tools Menu on the telescope tab and can be added to a toolbar.
FOVI grips now disappear when the FOVI disappears due to changes in the FOV.
Fixed bug where right-clicking on stellar extended labeling was not working.
Added Connect and Disconnect buttons to the camera dialog.
Added two FOVI options to the Image Link dialog. The first for adding a FOVI that matches the computed scale and position angle of the image link. The second option allows automatically rotating all active FOVIs to the computed position angle each time a on image link is performed.
New Feature-Dome setup has a configurable update interval.
Fixed a bug where large database asteroid queries of the asteroids visible on the Sky Chart was clipping to 18 magnitude.
Fixed a bug in the Small Screen Toolbar where keyboard input was being ignored.
Fixed a bug where the Telescope toolbar was not showing up in the list of Toolbars for customization.
Fixed two bugs related to time skips from twilight to twilight. After midnight twilight cases are now handled correctly, and the DST also now handled correctly.
Added an app setting that allows stopping all rendering/updating when TheSkyX is minimized (Windows only) for both OpenGL and Non-GL plotting.
The Sleep button now correctly shows the state of the sleep for all states.
Fixed bug where constellation label state was not updated properly.
Automatically save panoramic horizon settings for each photo.
Automatically import TheSky6’s .horizon file to restore panoramic horizon photo position.
The Create Tours dialog now has file saving and opening that places the tours (which are just .skyx settings files) in the Tours folder.
Automated pointing run files are saved into the correct support files folder.
Added better handling of graphics when the frame rate is set below 20 FPS, or a slow computer is in use.
Made changes to ImageLink so that NOMAD is ignored unless a very small FOV is used.
Downloaded Satellites, Comets, Asteroids files go to folders instead of the folder. The consequence is that users will now backup these files, but going to shows etc., where there is no Internet connection, going to file open should display the last downloaded file so users can select it.
Fixed a bug where the NOMAD catalog was not used properly for Image Link.
Added the “Log current telescope position to” option for backward compatibility with TheSky6.
Treat the Gemini as a GEM for TPoint pointing calibration convention.
TheSkyX’s Dome Add On now has a DomeAPI driver selection. This means DomeAPI drivers written for AutomaDome for Windows now work with TheSkyX directly, independent of AutomaDome. This makes AutomaDome for Windows a legacy application.
ImageLink is now accessible from scripting languages.
Bug Fix: ImageLink “Close FITS” now clears the dialog title, dialog image and chart image.
List Bisque TCS and Bisque TCS Professional in list of supported mounts.
Bug fix: Find Flares now works even when all satellites from web (4000+) are loaded.
Fixed bug where turning off an SDB with the items tab displayed caused a crash.
Use mono-spaced font in Telescope Communications Window and made telescope log output more human readable.
Correctly save and restore the positions of many dialogs.
New Feature: Automated pointing run now highlights the active target while running.
Adjusted position of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
Added a button to get the image scale from a successful Image Link to the Known scale.
Added a GEM checkbox for NexStar telescopes so that TPoint pointing calibration works properly for Celestron GEMs.
Fixed Hercules in H.A. Rey Constellation lines.
Automated pointing run bug fix when Auto Darks on.
Changing the camera’s Reduction option applies to automated pointing runs without having to Take a photo from the camera tab.
Bug Fix: No longer encounter a “Command in Progress” message when running @Focus2 from CCDSoft (focuser go to’s were being performed asynchronously from the RASCOMTele interface when they should have been synchronously).
Tools > Open FITS command and Image Link’s Open FITS command now use the same folder.
Horizon Photos can now be 8-bit and lower photo formats (with no transparency or “alpha channel”).
Crash on connect to DomeAPI.
Bug Fix: TeleAPI wrapper now uses “int” for parameters originally declared as BOOL.
The LX200 driver no longer requires a response from the ACK command (Autostar III LS do not respond to this command).
Camera’s Take Photo uses the TheSkyX’s “current target” for coordinates if there is no telescope connection.
Fixed a bug where various magnitude filters were being reset to star values on startup.
Camera simulator has light and dark frame values.
Bug Fix: Reduction set to AutoDark when using CCDSoft’s Camera” now works.
Added AppSettings to edit the “fast” and “slow” focuser sizes of the RASCOMTele interface (used by CCDSoft’s @Focus).
Changed the transition field of view when larger planets switch from the small symbol to an extended ellipse so that the planet is visible at all fields of view.
Bug Fix: The Image Scale Helper Take Photo And Image Link It button wouldn’t work after aborting a pointing run with the error “Process Aborted”.
Bug Fix: TheSkyX can now set the LX200 classic’s date (was reporting a command failed message).
Prevent pointing calibration samples from being added to the model when the telescope is slewing.

June 18, 2010 – TheSkyX Version 10.1.8 Build 3919

Changed the minimum value for the Residual Filter on the Astrometry dialog from 0.20 to 0.10.
Printed charts now show equatorial grid line labels.
Added the ability to edit the printed chart title on the Export Chart dialog.
Fixed a bug with MyFOVs.Property reading if skMyFOVProp_Visible was 1 or 0 didn’t work.
Added Chart Center RA/Dec 2000 as an option for chart status window.
Observing list labeling now includes the last object in the list.
Added an action (that is available via a customized toolbar) for toggling the linked photos.
The Database Add On node now shows a graphic indicating the TheSkyX Database Add On path is set and that the databases are present at that location.
When the DB add on path is set, the NOMAD and UCAC3 catalogs are turned on, and the tree is rebuilt and expanded to show this.
Removed 0.50 pixel convention when absorbing CCDSoft sources.
Right mouse clicks now work in No OpenGL mode.
TheSkyX no longer crashes upon restart when folder has Unicode characters.
When choosing the Database Add On drive/volume, it is automatically selected by default when possible.
Improved the scripting error architecture.
Allow negative values on dome geometry.
The min/max FOV settings on SDBS is now ignored when doing an SDB query.
Gemini mounts are now treated as a GEM w/r/t TPoint model.
The state of extended labels is now saved within the .SKYX settings file.
Now reset the Find dialog’s auto-completer when satellites change.
The ObjectInformationobject returned by DataWizard.RunQuery is now populated correctly.
When attempting to set MyFOVI reference frame, the exception ERR_INDEX_OUT_OF_RANGE is no longer thrown.
All mounts are slewed to refracted coordinates (except LX200).
Good pointing samples are no longer flagged as likely being in error.
Jog amounts now show arcseconds not seconds.
No longer show angular separation in calibration run spread sheet – not meaningful information in light of modeled verses raw telescope coordinates.
Added message in TPoint when editing fixed terms.
The To Clipboard command in Mosaic now copies the centers to the Clipboard.
For TPoint Add On, the Remove Term now works on selected terms (instead of deleting all additional terms).
Suggest and Remove term buttons are now disabled while “Suggest Terms” is iterating.
Added icon for Imaging System Setup dialog.
Editing a color now shows its alpha channel (Windows) or Opacity (Mac).
TheSkyX now properly sets Astro-Physics mount’s local date and time.
TheSkyX now sets the time zone properly in Daylight Saving Time for mounts that use, or use a subset of, the LX200 command protocol (Astro-Physics, Meade, iOptron and Gemini).
Changed the layout of the Find dialog box to always show the object name, symbol and object-specific buttons.
Added slew time estimate to slew to loop for Paramount mounts.
Dates between 001 and 999 now appear correctly in the Chart Status window.
Displaying Multiple Graphs in the TPoint Add On now works.
Added a Suspend Telescope Connection command in the Telescope Setup dialog.
DSS Setup dialog has a Close button instead of an OK/Cancel buttons.
DSS Setup dialog now remembers the tab that was last used.
Added an application setting for specifying whether or not the Observing List is automatically saved/loaded on exit/startup.
GSC identifiers are now being set on database queries.
NOMAD and UCAC3-specific magnitudes are now shown in the Object Information report.
Added a Log tab to the Find Dialog that shows Observers Log information for the current target object and allows adding Observations. Previously, observing logs could only be accessed through the Observers List.
LX200 mounts can unpark successfully now.
Added Paramount GT-1100S and Paramount MX to the list of supported mounts.
The TPoint Add On Polar Alignment Report now employs a less restrictive criteria for detecting a poor model for polar alignment recommendations.
The frame around photos in Photo Viewer and on preview window on the Photo window is now smaller.
Changed Linked Image text to Linked Photo.
Telescope jogs now use the raw telescope coordinates; they do not include refraction or modeling.
Telescope tab is brought forward upon telescope connection.
Move is default tab on the Telescope dialog.
Jog default amount is now 10 arcminutes.
The list of jog distances is now sorted smallest to largest.
Image Link now works for FITS photos with the height greater than the width.
TheSkyX’s installer now registers TheSky6 type library so that third-party applications can access TheSkyX’s scripting model.
Fixed a bug where the Observing List filter’s “equals” string comparator was not trimming the Sky Database (SDB) field string, so exact matches were not found.

May 7, 2010 – TheSky Version 10.1.7 Build 3828

Fixed a bug that prevented entering FOVIs with multiple elements.
Height of Object Information Report now scales to the height of the font..
TheSkyX’s StarChart
Added camera temperature regulation to the Basic Camera Add On.

April 19, 2010 – TheSky Version 10.1.6 Build 3784

The initial release of TheSkyX Professional Edition.
Added a Planet Report that includes a variety of Sun, Moon and planet ephemerides and other body-specific data.
Video driver incompatibility workaround: changed OpenGL calls so that horizon and other graphics items do not disappear when using Intel display adaptors.
Bug fix: Added Cepheus constellation line for Wil Trion set.
Bug fix: For locales where decimal and separators differed from US (“.” and “,” respectively), custom locations floating point numeric values were being truncated at the decimal level.
Bug fix: FOVIs: No longer allow click OK while selecting a root item in the list of telescopes, which isn’t a valid selection which was confusing.
Bug fix: Julian date displayed in Find tab is now shown to a more appropriate number of significant figures.
Bug fix: mirror photos when the Show Mirror Image command is turned on.
Added NexStar-specific telescope commands dialog.
Added Sky Commander/ServoCAT support.
Bug fix: The Edit Chart Element dialog wasn’t in sync with changes that happen outside of it.
Added Cross Hair Update Interval option to the Telescope > Telescope Setup dialog.
Bug fix: horizon/equatorial lines fonts/widths are now correct.
Bug fix: changes to time zone and elevation are now immediately applied.
Bug Fix: mounts that cannot report which side of the pier they are on will now point “better” w/r/t TPoint.
Bug fix: “Software imposed slew limits” can be over-ridden.
Bug fix: Display > Non-Stellar Options dialog, the Hollow Deep Sky option is no longer ignored.
Bug fix: Display > Non-Stellar Options dialog, a “fuzzy” value of 0 is now applied correctly.
Sky Database pens and brushes can now have an alpha channel.
Setting the pen color now works in a drawing Sky Database.
The Status Bar can now be configured to show Sky Chart Status information. To optimize screen real estate, items placed in the Status Bar do not include a text prefix, as they do in the Chart Status window. For example, the date in the Status Bar appears as just: 12/22/2020.
Added angular separation and position angle from prior object to Object Information Report on the Find dialog.
Corrected AP Park Positions (labels were wrong).
Moon’s Long/Lat are shown separately from the Moon Feature Information text box.
Fixed a regression bug that prevented showing Moon Viewer photos.
Changed name of TheSkyX supplied Sky Databases from “System” to “Core Sky Databases” in the Database Manager dialog.
All negative values for offsets in FOVIs.
Added TeleAPI to list of supported telescopes.
Corrected spelling of the star Alnair.
Updated/added SBIG detectors and corrected the relative position of the autoguider for the SBIG STL-4020M model camera.
Corrected misspelling of Sirius in tour description.
Enabled the app option to turn off AutoSave (was forced to on and disabled) and added an option to turn off being prompted to save modified settings. Sky Chart settings are “dirtied” better now, but not “perfectly” (on the conservative side). These changes allow customers more flexibility w/r/t multiple charts and is more like what TheSky6 Pro offers.
The format of the date and time that is displayed in TheSkyX’s custom Date & Time control can now be configured.Right-click on the control to edit the format.
Bug fix: prevent loading large database asteroids while load in progress.
Bug fix: Percent status is now correct while converting large database asteroid text file.
Cleaned up Asteroid (Large Database) dialog.
Night Vision Mode under Windows no longer requires Windows themes.
Fixed printing of ellipses (galaxies, etc.)
When FOVI groups are selected (like Telescopes+Eyepieces) the Combine message now correctly displays the number of combinations.
Bug fix: Positions of the galactic poles are now precessed to the current equinox.
Version 10.1.3 (Build 2930) July 24, 2009
Higher accuracy computations for Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons.
Shadows of Jupiter’s major moons now appear on the planet.
Jupiter and Saturn’s moons can now be locked on.
Jupiter’s and Saturn’s major moons can be located using the Find command.
Added pulse focuser support for mounts that support pulse focusers through the telescope protocol (LX200/Autostar/AP GTO/Gemini).
Comet perihelion date now uses full precision from orbital elements.
Stereographic spelled correctly in Projections dialog.
Double-clicking tree list to add a “My FOVI” now works correctly.
Clicking Cancel button when editing a new FOVI no longer creates the FOVI.
Press Insert/Delete keys to add/remove My FOVIs.
The type Circle no longer appears in the Shape List when editing FOVIs.
Can double-click My FOVI list to edit them.
Increased the minimum size of the FOVI edit fields for better readability on the Mac.
E/W offset option renamed to East/west offset; N/S offset renamed to North/south offset on the Edit Detector dialog.
Center telescope cross hair now corrects for coordinate offset caused by TPoint model.
Corrected location for observatory in India.
Fixed a bug that caused TheSkyX to crash when connecting to the Temma.
Fixed a bug that caused the Temma to hang on connection.
The “Always keep telescope crosshairs on screen” option is now saved.
On the Mac, after a crash, re-starting TheSkyX and clicking cancel when prompted for a serial number would keep incrementing the multi-instance index. It is also possible that this fix might lessen the cases when starting again on the Mac after a crash goes to a new instance. On Mac (Unix OS) shared memory can survive a crash. Restarting the computer is the only way to free it.
Turning on/off FOVI’s from Chart Elements tab now works.
The “Slew button always disabled after slew” issue with Vixen HTTP telescopes is fixed.
Set both date and time in Gemini and LX200 driver (date was not always set correctly).
Reboot Gemini command now works.
Button text “Find Now” changed to “Find” on the Find window and Telescope window.
“Find” text on Telescope window changed to “Search For” for consistency with Find window.
Increased default width of SDB manager window.
Changed the maximum size for FOVI to 50 degrees.
TheSkyX Windows installer no longer allows individual features to be selected when there’s insufficient space on a drive.
Stellar catalogs are now saved and restored when opening an observing list query.
FOVI’s now drawn after Photo SDBs.
Constellation label checkbox in Chart Elements now works.
Numerous bug fixes related to changing the magnitude limits of single and multiple chart elements.
Fixed bug where clicking on planet moon reverted to Earth’s Moon.
The Tools > Show Satellites > Find Best Passes option now works (regression bug).
NexStar telescope cross hair position is now always correct.
Increased NexStar’s time out time to 3.5 seconds (per protocol specifiction)
Changed My Chart Element # heading to Element #.
Jupiter’s major moons can now by located from the Display > Find window.
Herschel and Caldwell labels are no longer filtered when the corresponding NGC/IC has already been plotted.
Renamed “Allow scrolling below the horizon picture” to “Allow Sky Chart to be scrolled below the horizon” (Display > Horizon and Atmosphere dialog).
The Allow Sky Chart to be scrolled below the horizon option can be accessed when either “Photograph” or “Custom Horizon” is selected.
FOVIs fill color can now be edited.
The default fill for circular FOVIs in Map-Like View is transparent.
For object types that cannot be turned on or off, the state of the Visible checkbox in the Chart Elements list is set to “indeterminate”.
Telescope can be slewed to any ra/dec or az/alt coordinate from the Telescope windows Tools > Slew To Coordinates command. (Or the Enter Coordinates tab of the Orientation > Navigate window).
Disabled diagonal move buttons for telescopes that do not support this feature.
Added the native Set Sidereal Tracking Rate and Turn Tracking Off commands to the AP-Specific dialog.
Changed the text “Related Find Results” to “Related Search Results” on the Display > Find window.
Updated telescopes listed in FOVI telescope database (including RCOS telescopes).
Searching for Asterisms now works (recompiled Asterisms.txt).
Changed moonlit side of symbol on date calendar for first and last quarter Moon.
Add a provision to (externally) abort serial operations that may timeout.
For mounts that can set tracking rates, but not get/read them, provide a convention so that an agnostic (non bias) status message may result.
Telrad Finder is now the correct size.
Added the Telescope Simulator to the list of supported telescopes (under Software Bisque).
Improved Telescope Simulator’s cross hair motion (slews now simulate acceleration and deceleration).
The automated location look up via IP is now more robust wrt invalid http responses.
The LX200 can now automatically synchronize at the home position after a park and reconnection to TheSkyX.
Added an abortable progress indicator window that appears when loading observing lists with large numbers of objects.

May 7, 2009 – TheSky Version 10.1.2 Build 2845

The initial release of TheSky Serious Astronomer Edition for both Mac and Windows.

TheSky Fusion Change Log

TheSky Fusion changes in each update are listed below.

Note that all updates are comprehensive and include all the improvements, changes and fixes since the original product release. That means there’s no need to install an earlier release before installing the latest release.

Valued customers with an active subscription can download the latest TheSky Fusion update by logging in and and visiting My account, My Downloads page.

Version 2024-07-22 (latest release)

Updates TheSky to version 10.5.0 build 13878.
Updates the QHYCCD camera and filter wheel plugins to the latest release (version 3.15).

Version 2024-03-22 (latest release)

Updated TheSky Imaging bundle to version 10.5.0 build 13822.
Installs the latest ZWO camera, focuser and filter wheel plugin.
Installs updated and new plugins from RTI-Zone.
Installs a kernel update for compatibility with Prolific chipsets.
Supports Paramount Series 6 mounts and the MKS 6000 control system.

Version 2022-04-21

Updated TheSky Imaging Edition to build 13318.
Updated the MallinCam X2 Camera Plug In to incorporate changes in the latest camera SDK.

Version 2022-01-28

Updated TheSky Imaging Edition to build 13243.
- Updated QHYCCD Camera Plug In
- Updated common non-stellar databases
- Updated Field of view indicators
- Updated Wolf-Rayet stars
- Updated RTI-Zone X2 Plug Ins.

Version 2021-12-01

Features that require secure hypertext transfer protocol (https) are now operational, including location via IP, web-based Digitized Sky Survey, and updating small solar system body ephemerides.

Version 2021-11-11

Updated the ZWO X2 Camera Plug In to address timeout errors.
Updated several X2 Plug Ins from RTI-Zone.

Version 2021-11-02

Corrected an issue that could prevent connection to ATIK camera and filter wheels.
LTI’s Photo Verify process is now operational when acquiring actual photos (rather than just when DSS photos were acquired).

Version 2021-10-27

Installs TheSky Imaging build 13206.
Updater now prompts to close TheSky before proceeding.

Version 2021-09-24

Installs TheSky Imaging build 13166.
Updates shutdown script to account for minor hardware tweaks.
Includes ZWO video plug-in support.
A SER-based video playing app is now available on the Desktop.