From: Phil Houston <pkh111@knology.net>

Date: June 26, 2007 3:18:15 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Astro IIDC 4 Feature List

Milton,

The new version sounds great!  I'm beginning to think that you might just be Santa Claus.

Thanks ,

Phil

On Jun 26, 2007, at 3:50 PM, Milton Aupperle wrote:

Hi folks;

I'm working away at the Astro IIDC 4 and have been seeding Alpha
copies of it to a select group of Astro IIDC users for feedback.

I thought I would give everyone a quick run down of the main new
features that are planned for Astro IIDC Version 4.0:

- Will be a Universal Binary for PowerPC Macs / x86 MacIntels. This
means it now requires OSX 10.4.x or higher and will probably exclude
G3 PowerMac owners.

- Added Full Width Half Max (FWHM) and Half Flux Diameter (HFD) real
time estimates with "sharpness rings" as an aid for focussing with a
single star.

- The "Image Processing Module" (IMP) was re-written so the image is
displayed in a re-sizable scrollable window with the Image Controls in
separate floating palette windows. You can also scale the image down
to as small as 10% size and as high as 500%.

- Added Astrometry measurements of IMP images so that given three
control stars, it can then determine high precision RA/Dec positions
for other objects such as asteroids, moons of planets, unknown stars,
nebula edges, comets or other features etc.

- Added Photometric measurements for Luma, Red, Green and Blue color
channels of IMP images to determine relative or absolute magnitude of
stars and star like objects. So you can now measure comet core
brightnesses, variable stars, novas or other stellar objects and
produce reports on them.

- Allows you to import separate Luma, Red, Green and Blue (or just
Red, Green and Blue) stacked images, align them manually and then
process them in the IMP as LRGB.

- Added optional FWHM estimator for "turbulence" suppression while
guiding, which filters out the bad stars for tracking.

- Allows you to manipulate your Stacking Selection Areas by deleting
or moving the areas individually.

- Added our own 2x to 4x scalar code for stacking scaled 16 bit
movies, as Apple does not offer that ability.

- Animation Alignment Tools.

- More and Better FITs file support.

- Tons of minor tweaks and performance enhancements.

Anticipated availability is late fourth quarter 2007, hopefully in
time for Mars opposition. Pricing and upgrade costs are still to be
determined.

TTYL..

Milton Aupperle