ANN: New Version of Deepsky Software (DAS)

I wanted to let people know that I have released a new version of my Deepsky
software http://www.deepsky2003.net

Previously called Deepsky 2003, the new version builds on previous versions
and now is called Deepsky Astronomy Software or DAS. DAS now includes a
completely redesigned logbook and many other enhancements like improved
searching capabilities, determining when an object is best observed during
the year, a SQL EZ query tool, observing plan manager, and much more. A
complete list of new features, enhancements, and fixes are at the end of
this message.

There are many upgrade options for existing users of any version of my
software. So visit my website today and see what the new DAS is all about.
For a quick look at all the new screens, go he
http://www.deepsky2002.net/screen/pages/Chart8.htm

Thanks

Steve


Deepsky Release Notes
May 26, 2004



SUPPORT

For technical assistance with Deepsky, please either email me a note or call
me on the phone during the evening (after 6pm CST).



Steven S Tuma





http://www.deepsky2003.net





New Logbook Features (Totally Redesigned)

NEW: Added new fields to the logbook

1) observation # that you can control

2) Weather Conditions

3) Urban Flag - ie. under light polluted skies

4) Power - Magnification used to see the object

5) Session Start Date and time

6) Session Stop Date and time

7) Session Name - ie. Star Party

8) StarHop / Goto flag - for star hopping or using computerized
scopes

9) Other ID - that you want to associate with this observation

10) CCD Bias Frame (Y/N) field

11) 10 user defined fields. You can use them however you want.



NEW: Consolidated logbook spreadsheet screen and logbook entry onto the main
screen making the whole logbook easier to use.



NEW: You can specify which columns you want to appear on the logbook. There
are now nearly 50 columns that you can specify.



NEW: Added other ID as a searchable field using the logbook advanced search
button.



NEW: There is a Freeze columns option on the logbook spreadsheet that
freezes columns to the left of the cell.



NEW: The logbook entry screen is completely redesigned. All information is
now entered on one screen. In addition, information on the observed object
like RA, Dec, Type, Constellation, magnitude, and size are shown on the
logbook entry screen for reference.



NEW: Session notes have been consolidated into the main log entry screen.
Session information is now stored with each observation. You are able to
specify a start and end date for the observing session along with assigning
a name to the observing session.



NEW: There is now a Weather Conditions section in the logbook that lets you
store the weather, seeing, transparency, and other notes related to the
weather.



NEW: THe EZ Log update screens now let you enter additional information.



NEW: You now have the ability to restore backed up logbooks. You would use
this if you had to reinstall Deepsky.



NEW: When opening an observing plan, the tab the plan is opened on will now
automatically be renamed to the plan name.







Other New Features

NEW: (AWESOME) The search screen on the main spreadsheet hasn't changed
much over the years, but now it has been completely redesigned. It is now
much easier to find what you are looking for. Besides adding a common name
lookup feature, you can specify multiple criteria and save the criteria set
for later use. I think you will like this new feature!



NEW: Deepsky can now display Uranometria 2000 chart #'s in the spreadsheet



NEW: SQL EZ Query Tool (For users who know SQL) has been added to the
Database pulldown menu. It is simple and fast to use and maintains a
history of all your SQL statements you enter so that you can use them again
without retyping them. You can even search through this list saving you the
time to retype the SQL statement.



NEW: Added the LOCATE OBJECT IN TELESCOPE to the main toolbar. This makes
it easier for people not using a mouse to select it.



NEW: There is a RESTORE LOGBOOK option on the Logbook pulldown menu that
will allow you to restore a backed up logbook.



NEW: Added new observing plans that users have shared



NEW: Updated how Deepsky flags an object as observed on the spreadsheet. A
problem in the past was that if you observed an object in the NGC 2000
catalog, it wouldnt get flagged as observed in other catalogs like the SAC71
catalog. This happened because the logbook stores objects observed by
object id and catalog. Now, Deepsky by default will show it observed in both
catalogs on the spreadsheet. An option was added to MISC preferences that
lets you put it back the old way.



NEW: Find Date of Highest Altitude During Darkness. You can now right click
an object in the spreadsheet and select this option to find the date the
object will be highest in the sky for your location. Information displayed
will include altitude, azimuth, date, time, altitude of the moon, and the
moon phase.



NEW: Observing Plan Manager lets you see a list of all your plans in a
spreadsheet format. You can rename or delete them and also quickly open
them.



NEW: You can now sort the currently displayed spreadsheet 3 levels deep. In
the past you had to always click Refresh which ran a query to do this.



NEW: When opening an observing plan, the tab the plan is opened on will now
automatically be renamed to the plan name.



Enhancements

UPD: Updated support to call Virtual Moon Atlas 2 from Deepsky.



UPD: LogTypes in Misc preferences now includes a (SHOW ALL) log type which
will use all log types when determining whether an object should be marked
observed in the spreadsheet. In addition, if you select another log type
instead of SHOW ALL, then when the Deepsky spreadsheet loads, only observed
objects within that log type will be flagged with an X on the spreadsheet.



UPD: Added SAVE PLAN and ENABLE SCOPE to the main toolbar. Also grouped
some of the icons a little better.



UPD: The objects observed by observing plan report now includes RA, Object
Type, Magnitude, and Declination in the SORT BY drop down. RA has been
added to the report and the object id now includes the common name of the
object if it has one followed by the object type.



UPD: The Observed flag in the database is not used to tell if an object has
been observed. Instead the logbook file is examined directly.



UPD: The MY LOGBOOK REPORT and PRINT LOGBOOK 1 OBJECT PER PAGE now let you
select the LogType prior to running the report so the report is filtered by
log type. You still have the option of selecting all types.



UPD: Minor change to the find object screen



UPD: Scope Equipment and eyepieces for Celestron, Meade, Televue and Orion



UPD: Made the chart Object Information window taller so that you can see
more of the text



UPD: EZ Logbook Update within date range has a few new fields to enter.



UPD: Clicking the column headers in the main Deepsky spreadsheet will sort
that column. Clicking it again sorts it in descending sequence.



UPD: When an observing plan is shown on the spreadsheet, the # of objects
observed in the plan is now shown in the status bar.



UPD: In the Log NOTES VIEW, only observations with notes in them will show
up here. If notes are blank for an observation they will not appear here.



UPD: Added more space to enter notes in the ADD NOTE TO PLAN option



Bug Fixes

FIX: The slide show feature was not working properly for users of LX200
scopes. This has been resolved. LX200 users can now use the LX200 keypad
to move the scope from object to object.



FIX: An internal error has occurred. Deepsky will now exit at which point
you can re-run the software. Variable W = 1 or W = -1 Module1.CalcASN"



FIX: Corrected the date showing up incorrect on the comet and asteroid
ephemeris when less than 1 day iteration was specified.



FIX: Corrected error when using the quick charts



FIX: When using the Outside Log entry to log an observation, session notes
would be erased if you updated more than one object on that date. This is
now fixed.



FIX: When viewing some of Deepsky's reports, you may have gotten an
"Unexpected Null" error. This has been fixed.



FIX: The Plot all objects centered on selected object was not passing the
observer log info to the charts. This has been fixed



FIX: Table Maintenance -- Maintain Object Database, Logbook, etc, - In
multiple queries, the previous query does not seem to be fully cleared so
the results are wrong. In some cases, nothing is returned in the query.
This is now fixed



FIX: When arrowing up or down in the spreadsheet, the arrow keys would stop
working.



FIX: THe CTRL-Home and CTRL-End keys now work properly in the spreadsheet



FIX: Fixes problem with not converting all Deepsky 2002 and earlier logbook
entries into the new Deepsky format.



FIX: Comet and asteroid ephemeris were not working for time increments of
less than one day. This has been fixed. For time increments of 1 hour, you
can use 0.041666



FIX: When upgrading to Deepsky, the logbook conversion improperly flagged
the SEEN FLAG field as all being seen. This is now corrected.



FIX: Using query builder on the logbook caused an SQL error to occur. This
was because the OTHERID field was not included in the SQL string. This has
been fixed and any new queries against the logbook should be fixed.



FIX: The Logbook Search screen did not always work properly causing a TOO
FEW PARAMETERS error for some searches. This included the date observed and
object id searches. This has been fixed.



FIX: When importing new data into the Deepsky database, objects below -85
degrees declination were being assigned the wrong constellation (PER)
instead of Octans. This has now been fixed. NOTE: If you have imported
your own catalogs into Deepsky, you might want to remove them and re-import
them in order to fix this problem.



FIX: When adding new equipment to your list, the list box would always
position itself at the end of the list.







Cumulative Changes From Beta 1 to Current Version

UPD: Changed GOTO label on log form to : GOTO/CA for Goto or Computer
Assisted.



UPD: When double clicking or selecting an observation, only images and notes
for that object/catalog combination will be displayed on the images and
notes tab. There is a button on each tab that will let you select ALL
images or notes in the logbook if you so choose.



UPD: Added a SELECT button next to Other Equipment so you can pick from your
personal list of equipment.



NEW: (AWESOME) The search screen on the main spreadsheet hasn't changed
much over the years, but now it has been completely redesigned. It is now
much easier to find what you are looking for. Besides adding a common name
lookup feature, you can specify multiple criteria and save the criteria set
for later use. I think you will like this new feature!



UPD: LogTypes in Misc preferences now includes a (SHOW ALL) log type which
will use all log types when determining whether an object should be marked
observed in the spreadsheet. In addition, if you select another log type
instead of SHOW ALL, then when the Deepsky spreadsheet loads, only observed
objects within that log type will be flagged with an X on the spreadsheet.



UPD: The objects observed by observing plan report now includes RA, Object
Type, Magnitude, and Declination in the SORT BY drop down. RA has been
added to the report and the object id now includes the common name of the
object if it has one followed by the object type.



FIX: Uranometria 2000 chart #'s should now be correct.



FIX: Fatal error in logbook if you select the image manager without first
having an observation shown on the screen.



UPD: Renamed Table Report 1 and 2 to something more meaningful. If the new
Print Spreadsheet button is pressed, a warning message asking to print the
report will be displayed giving the user the opportunity to cancel it.



UPD: Changed the CLEAR FORM button to a CANCEL button that cancels the
current log entry and clears the form.



UPD: When setting up user defined fields for the logbook, clicking save will
give a message saying that Deepsky must be restarted. After that, Deepsky
ends.



UPD: When an object is selected on the logbook spreadsheet screen, the notes
view tab will now show only notes for the currently selected object. The
refresh button on the notes view tab now will show all notes from all
observations



FIX: Problem in logbook advanced search when searching with Other ID and
Constellation or Object type.



FIX: Entering a new observation for an object starting with M and is not a
Messier object would cause an error occurring in
ctlLogSpreadNew.UpdateDeepskyTable



UPD: Added numeric row headers to the logbook spreadsheet.



FIX: Outside log entry requires that an object id and catalog be entered
before an entry can be added to the logbook.



FIX: When using Outside log entry, clearing the fields also cleared the
default date.



FIX: CTRL-C now works after clicking an object in the grid on the outside
log entry form.



UPD: When an observing plan is shown on the spreadsheet, the # of objects
observed in the plan is now shown in the status bar.



UPD: Added more space to enter notes in the ADD NOTE TO PLAN option



NEW: When opening an observing plan, the tab the plan is opened on will now
automatically be renamed to the plan name.



UPD: In the Log NOTES VIEW, only observations with notes in them will show
up here. If notes are blank for an observation they will not appear here.



UPD: The log type filter now defaults to the current one set in MISC
preferences when the Log spreadsheet is shown.



UPD: The MY LOGBOOK REPORT and PRINT LOGBOOK 1 OBJECT PER PAGE now let you
select the LogType prior to running the report so the report is filtered by
log type. You still have the option of selecting all types.



FIX: For NON US users, the date in the logbook spreadsheet may be blank when
it actually has a value. If this persists, go to MISC preferences and check
LOG DATE NON US .