Anyone here willing to help me test my project?

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larrylart

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Hi,

I started this project back in 2004 as I realize that more and more people get into astrophotography but most will go no further then framing nice pictures. So I thought that it will be good to have a simple to use tool to allow amateur astronomers to do plate-solving(detect and match your image against star catalogs), so they can explore and learn more about these marvelous images so I started to develop this project. Now after literally tens of thousands of development hours you can just load your astrophoto and in a few clicks learn almost everything is known about your image, what are the stars, galaxies, nebulas, radio sources, x-ray/gamma bursts, supernovas, extra solar planets or asteroids, comets and even artificial earth satellites passing through. Also, you can get more advanced information like various measurements available (including spectral) and links to articles/abstracts talking about objects and/in that area in the sky.

On top of that I added several tool to help amateur astronomer to better plan his observing session like an on click collection of environmental/weather data, instruments management/control and also an online collaboration interface to allow amateur astronomers to easily exchange/review the data.

You can check a preview of my project at: http://larryo.org/work/information/unimap/index.html

There is something else I want to add… the project is written in c++/wxwidgets (cross platform gui library) and that means it can be compiled on other platforms such as linux/mac/etc. Most functionality will work except for the digital cameras interface (and for Mac I am not sure about the video interface either) which is for the moment is windows only. So if people are interested please let me know and I will be looking in the future to release it for Linux or Mac osX as well.

Also, my future plans with this project is to release it free and opensource (for windows, linux and perhaps macosx)… if all goes well, I mean if people show interest in it and it’s workable and from there I might be looking for sponsorship at some point to support a big central database though which amateur astronomers from all over the world can share image resolved with astrometry data etc. So maybe now you can also understand what am I doing here as well …

Anyone interested to help me test it and/or feedback will be appreciated!

Larry
 
Hi Larry,

this is a great project and sure would be very usefull to astrophotographers.

Even beeing a beginner (one year) in astrophotography, I'd love to test it and give feedback, as long as my abilities allow.

For the moment, clear skies are very rare here in Bavaria but I'm looking forward to better conditions. There can't be rain all the time...

Wish you a happy new year.

Greetings and Clear Skies

Uli
 
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Hello Larry,

:hochachtung: I do know that this was and is hard work ;)
The vision (which i share too) behind it deserves public awareness. :applaus:

This is a 5 star development :super:

Best regards

Alex (VectorSCOPE)
 
I apologize for the delay as my life got slightly complicated lately. On top of that my pc crashed last week - I think the cpu is screwed (it will power off as soon as it gets even a little load) and the only way around it was to under-clock it to 1ghz and 0.7v and now I will have to install everything.

You can download and test the very first pre-alpha release from here:

http://larryo.org/work/information/unimap/test0/unimap_setup_pa_0.exe

I know there are still bugs and room for of improvements, optimization, etc. "Unfortunately" I have built this application so big and I got so little time lately that I should probably focus on getting the core functionality working right and here any suggestions and ideas will really help.

It is compiled on XP. On windows 7 you might encounter crashes (mostly due to file/io permissions) – I will get them fixed as soon as I will get some time.

Larry

 
Hi, Larry,

what an awesome piece of software. You merged virtually every functionality I can image to be useful into one functional unit. I am looking forward to give it a test drive. I'm primarily using Mac OS 10.6, but a good old ThinkPad (Centrino generation) running XP will do fine I hope.

In terms of your PC troubles: What current CPU is even able to underclock to 1GHz? Another proof that you don't need a fancy rig to make good software?
If you could put some use to an ols S939 Athlon64 I could pass it to you, just in case ;-)

Clear skies,
Pascal
 
Well I think "God" is playing a game on me with this one ... back three years ago I was working on another project of mine "umouse" on good laptop at the time 2.8ghz and during a storm a lighting hit the power gird and fried my laptop and most of my network equipment (home server etc) so I only had left an older laptop at 700mgz/512mb ram ... so I could not continue work on the umouse because that laptop had an usb1 and it was to slow for the camera - then I decided to continue the work on this project which i started in 2004. Almost half of unimap was done on that laptop :) Now sure you can do it with almost any hardware ... if you have enough patience :) The application will do fine with a cpu at 450mhz but the ram is most important especially for the very big images ... and because I haven't not optimize it yet properly :) ... a 1-2Gb ram should be enough for most images even hubble like resolutions.

Larry
 
Larry, I think this is a great project and will do my best to help. I've just downloaded the initial version and will report as soon as I get time.
I live west of Cologne and use an EOS 1000D on an 8" Newton.

Keep up the good work,
Owen
 
I have made some adjutments to the installer and now it should work ok on windows 7 as well. Also fixed some of bugs.
Anyone here tried the application yet?

Larry
 
Hi, Larry,
is it possible to save the detected picture as a fits file with correct fits data header ?? to plug in into other software like guide or cdc ?
thanks
Matthias
 
Hi Matthias,

It was possible ... until I broke it with a new updated cfitsio library :) I managed partial recovery the fits functionality but I will get the fits wcs data header back in asap.

Larry
 
A new version has been released with:

- updated the star common names list with a better one
- added extension files one and two to tycho2
- added map for common names with tycho2
- fixed 2mass catalog names display error
- fixed show/hide all objects from menu->view objects
- fixed search in spiral - which is now set default as it's faster (instead of swipe)
- added a simple method to check/notify on updates
- some minor bug fixes

Also, note that now there is a forum on the site to discuss more in depth the technical problems.

Anyone here tried the application yet?

Larry
 
I am wondering if people here find this application useful? At the concept level what do you think I should change/add to improve it?
 
Hi Larry,

this software is a masterpiece :respekt2: !
It's exactly the kind of software I was looking for.
Will contact you via email within the next days after further trials!
:super:
Dieter
 
Hi Larry,

this is awesome! Thanks for bringing it as an open source program! It's got everything you need from a to z!

I'll give you feedback after further testing.

Thanks!
Steffen
 
Hi Larry,

I downloaded your software and made some quick trials.

Frist of all, congratulations to that awesome project!!!

Two things:
- I suffered numerous crashes. Ususally when restarting the matching-routine without clearing the data first. I have Win XP, SP3.
- Is ist possible to overlay a number og different catalogs?

Greeting,

Michael

 
Great masterpiece of SW.
This will help to center the Camera to the desired area of interest.
Great, really!

Thanx!
 
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