KStars: New Features in KDE 3.3

Let's take a brief tour of some of the features we've added to KStars for the KDE 3.3 release. This was a relatively short release cycle, so there are not as many new features as we had in the 3.2 release. Nevertheless, there have still been several interesting developments, so come on in and check it out..

Image Acquisition

Through the development of the INDI protocol, Jasem Mutlaq has already provided KStars users with the ability to control their telescopes. With this release, he adds image acquisition capabilities, using either simple webcams and other Video For Linux Devices, or more serious CCD cameras, such as those produced by Finger Lakes Instruments. In addition to simply controlling the camera hardware, Jasem has also developed a FITS Viewer tool, which allows for convenient display and editing of the acquired images. KStars is rapidly becoming an attractive option for serious amateur astronomers in search of software to support their observations.

Back To The Future

Thanks to code contributed by Michel Guitel, you can now use very remote dates in KStars. In standard KDE/Qt applications, there is a hard-coded limit on the range of allowable dates: only years between 1752 and 8000 are possible. Michel developed a complete replacement for the Qt date/time classes that does not have this limitation, and we added clones of the GUI date/time widgets (such as the date picker) which support the new date/time classes. The upshot is, you can now set the date to pretty much anything you like (there's actually still an arbitrary restriction to years between -50000 and +50000). However, be warned that the accuracy of the positions of solar system bodies will become progressively worse as more remote dates are examined. If you want to maintain accuracy on the level of arcseconds, you should not stray too many centuries from the present epoch!

Sky Display Improvements

The sky display now includes constellation boundaries, the imaginary lines defined by the International Astronomical Union which divide the sky into the 88 constellations. In addition, three important celestial guide-lines (the horizon, the celestial equator, and the ecliptic) are now labeled on the map.

Here's a new feature that's pretty slick: if you hover the mouse pointer for a few moments in the map, a name label will automatically appear next to the object nearest the pointer. This label is temporary; as soon as the pointer is moved, it will fade away and disappear.

New Tools and Tool Improvements

Pablo de Vicente has provided us with a very useful new "Angular Ruler" tool. Using the popup menu or the "[" key, you define the "starting point" for the measurement. Then move the mouse to the "ending point", and use the popup menu or the "]" key to compute the angular distance between the two points. The computed distance is displayed in the statusbar. While defining the pair of points, a dotted line is drawn from the starting point to the mouse pointer, so you can easily tell that you are in the Angular Ruler mode.

Pablo has also been busy developing his AstroCalculator tool. He has added two more modules: one to compute the dates of the equinoxes and solstices, and another to compute planet coordinates. In addition, he has completed adding "batch modes"" for the calculator modules. These allow you to perform the astrocalculator functions on large sets of data in input files, and to retrieve the results in output files.

KStars now includes a startup wizard with which you can set your geographic location right away, and even download extra data files which are not included in the standard KStars distribution. The download feature uses the new KNewStuff mechanism to provide an intuitive GUI and a robust installation process.

The Object Details window has gotten some attention for this release. The information displayed for an object now includes the object's angular size and its distance from Earth. Also, the object's "airmass" (a measure of how much of the Earth's atmosphere light from the object must pass through) is displayed, along with the object's hour angle (a measure of the angle between the object and your local meridian). For the Moon, we also display its illumination fraction and a brief description of its current phase (e.g., "firs quarter", "waxing gibbous", etc.).

In the Image Viewer, we added a statusbar that displays a brief description of the image, as well as an author credit. If there are usage restrictions on the image (e.g., for non-commercial use only), they will be displayed here as well.

UI Improvements

KStars has always offered a "Night Vision" color scheme consisting only of red tones, which do not cause your dark-adapted pupils to contract. However, the color scheme did not affect the colors of the regular UI widgets (such as the menu, toolbars, and the backgrounds of tool windows). We have now added a feature that will apply a dark-red color scheme to the KStars widgets when the Night Vision color scheme is selected. Don't worry, your original widget colors will be restored when you choose a different color scheme.

However, even this addition does not provide a complete dark-vision solution, because only the KStars windows are affected, not the rest of the KDE desktop. It would be very rude for KStars to hijack the colors of other application windows; instead, we now provide a Fullscreen mode, which will cover your entire screen with the KStars window. By combining the Night Vision color scheme with Fullscreen mode, you get a reasonably complete dark-vision friendly environment.

It's always been the case that you can see the current RA/Dec coordinates of the mouse pointer in the statusbar. With the 3.3 release, the statusbar now shows the current Az/Alt coordinates as well. Actually, you can even configure which are shown, in the Settings|Statusbar menu.

DCOP and Command-Line Functions

There are four new DCOP functions available in this release:

setColor( QString name, QString value )

Sets the color named name to value value

loadColorScheme( QString schemeName )

Load the color scheme named schemeName

exportImage( QString filename )

Saves the current sky map image to file filename

printImage( bool usePrintDialog, bool useChartColors )

Print the current sky map image. If usePrintDialog is true, the print dialog will be shown first. If useChartColors is true, the "Star Chart" color scheme will be used for printing, to conserve ink.

Finally, for command-line "image dump" mode, there is now an additional argument available for specifying the date and time for the image.

Back to the KStars Homepage