KStars: New Features in KDE 3.2

This document highlights some of the changes made to KStars since the KDE 3.1 release. We've made large strides toward making KStars a genuinely useful tool for serious amateur astronomers, while still retaining our simple and intuitive interface that makes KStars easy to use even for those just getting to know the night sky.

Note: we had one unofficial "stable CVS" release since KDE 3.1, so some of the features listed here won't be new if you have installed that version. There's still quite a bit that has changed since then, however, so you should still take a look!

Stars:

The number of stars has increased by 300%, to 126,000. We now use the Hipparcos/Tycho Star Catalog, and have increased the number of named stars to over 1500. At right, you can see the constellation Taurus as displayed in KStars from KDE 3.1, and below is the same section of sky from 3.2, with all stars being shown. (This is not the default view; by default the fainter stars are only visible when you zoom in.)
	In addition, the genetive names of stars are now rendered with actual Greek Letters instead of their English spelling.

Solar System:

What's this mess? KStars is displaying name labels for some of the 2000+ asteroids and comets now included in the simulation. The name labels are optional, and you can control how many of these bodies get name labels by default.

Jupiter's four largest moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) are now included in the simulation, though you have to zoom in on Jupiter to see them. Track on Jupiter with an accelerated timestep to watch the moons orbit around Jupiter. When Galileo did that 400 years ago, it proved once and for all that the Earth was not the center of the Universe!

You may have noticed a line behind Jupiter in the previous screen. All solar system bodies can now optionally have a "Trail" attached to them, tracing their path across the sky. This lets you examine retrograde loops, as seen for Mars in the Fall of 2003 at right. These Trails are most useful when tracking on a body with a large timestep. By default, solar system bodies automatically get a Trail when they are centered in the display.

Telescope Control:

One of the most exciting new features is the fully-integrated telescope control through the INDI protocol. A large number of devices is already supported, including most popular computerized telescope mounts. The present position of your telescope is indicated in the map with a FOV symbol. Simple slew/track commands are available through the right-click popup menu, and more detailed control is possible with the Telescope Control Panel. It is even possible to control devices remotely, through the internet.

UI Enhancements:

There is now a customizable "Field-of-View" indicator, which can be used to show where the display is centered. You can select from four preset FOV symbols, or create your own, specifying the symbol's shape, color, and angular size. It can even calculate the angular size based on the parameters of a telescope system.

You can now click-and-drag a rectangle in the sky map which specifies a field-of-view you'd like to zoom in on; just hold down the Ctrl key. In addition, there is now a "Default Zoom" menu/toolbar action, and a tool for zooming to a specific angular size for the display.

Tools:

KStars now includes a number of Tools that enhance its usefulness beyond simple sky-mapping. In addition, the Astrocalculator (which was the only Tool available in 3.1) now includes a number of enhancements, including file-based "batch modes" for many of its modules.

Do you need to know if your favorite object will be observable tonight? The Altitude vs. Time Tool plots the positions of a list of objects above or below the Horizon, as a function of time. You specify which objects should be plotted. By default, the curves for the current location and date in the main window are shown, but these can be changed in the "Date & Location" Tab.

The Altitude Vs. Time Tool is powerful, but is best for examining a known list of objects. Sometimes you may just want to know what is going to be above your Horizon on a specific Date. The "What's Up Tonight?" Tool provides a summary of such objects, organized by object type. It also presents a short Almanac for the evening, with rise and set times for the Sun and Moon.

Since Jupiter's Moons are now included in the display, we figured we should offer this Tool as well. The Jupiter Moons Tool plots the positions of Jupiter's four largest moons, relative to Jupiter, as a function of time. Each moon's path resembles a sinusoidal curve, since it is in orbit around Jupiter. You can use the +/- keys to stretch the scale of the time axis, and use the [/] keys to translate the range of dates shown.

We also provide a simple Solar System Viewer, which provides a top-down view of the Solar System for the current date on the KStars clock. The view can be zoomed in and out with the +/- keys.

Astronomy is a science in which amateurs can make important contributions. A well-known example of this is variable-star monitoring. The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) makes systematic observations of capricious stars nightly, and publishes the data on their website. We have arranged direct access to this database through KStars, so you can download the very latest lightcurve plots for any of the hundreds of variable stars that is monitored by the AAVSO.

KStars can be scripted to perform complex behaviors without user interaction, through the KDE DCOP mechanism. This feature existed in the 3.1 version, but while the scripting language is pretty simple, it is still a bit like programming, and required manual editing of text files. KStars now includes the Script Builder Tool, which provides a simple point-and-click interface with which you can create, modify and test working KStars scripts. Give it a try, it's fun!

Other Enhancements:

• Startup time reduced by about 50%. Sky-rendering time cut in half.
• Command-line image-dump mode. This can be used to dynamically generate a background image for your desktop showing your sky in real-time.
• Expanded Object Details window, with access to professional-grade online databases
• High-quality printing. The printed image is no longer a bitmap, it is a vector-based PostScript Document. No more jaggies!
• New Menu items: Export Image, Run Script
• Expanded list of objects with external Image links in their popup menu
• Many, many usability enhancements

We hope you enjoy KStars!

The KStars Team:
   Jason Harris
   Heiko Evermann
   Thomas Kabelmann
   Pablo de Vicente
   Jasem Mutlaq
   Mark Hollomon
   Carsten Niehaus

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