AstroImageJ is open source software and is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Daily Build Version db3.2.1 (with ImageJ 1.47i) (Last Updated: 02/04/2016)

Changes

·         Multi-Aperture

·         Changed MA option “Update plot of measurements while running” to “Update table and plot while running”. With this option disabled, the measurements table display is not updated until the final measurement is taken and the data are not plotted. Disable this option to speed up photometry for very long sequences of images.

·         Multi-Plot

·         Fixed a bug that caused a loss of user entered comparison star AMAG values in the measurements table when the comp star was temporarily switched to a target star and then back to a comp star.

·         Coordinate Converter

·         Fixed bug that caused the local time 12/24 hour setting to not be save to preferences

·         Fixed bug that caused custom observatory altitude to not be saved to preferences

 

Version 3.2.0 (with ImageJ 1.47i) (Release date: 02/01/2016)

Changes

·         Coordinate Converter

·         Extracts ICRS coordinates from SIMBAD rather than FK5 (FK5 was dropped from SIMBAD query response)

·         Added Davey Lab Observatory, PSU to the internal list of observatories

·         AstroImageJ_Updater

·         Update operation now updates AIJ version number in Info.plist CFBundleVersion and CFBundleShortVersionString (MacOSX only)

·         Astrometry

·         Windows installations now support local plate solving using the ansvr package. Requires version 0.17 or higher. See http://adgsoftware.com/ansvr/   .

·         Annotation names with Greek letters now saved to FITS header as text-based names to accommodate FITS header character restrictions

·         Image Display

·         Fig bug that caused live photometer to not follow changes in the background region star removal setting after an image is displayed

·         Multi-plot

·         Light curve fitting panel

·         Fixed a bug that allowed negative values of baseline flux (caused fit panel lockup after restarting)

 

Version 3.1.0 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

Changes

·         Multi_Plot(MP)

·         Fixed a problem with the “Save all” menu item that caused the aperture overlays shown in the field image saved as a JPG or PNG to be displayed in the wrong location on the underlying image

·         Added a new menu item that creates Minor Planet Center (MPC) data submission format to Multi-plot_Main->File menu (thanks to Ferran Casarramona for the example macro from which the feature was created).

·         Optionally handles the entry of reference star apparent magnitude in the reference star panel. New table columns are created or overwritten when changes to ref star apparent magnitudes are changed. The new columns are Source_AMag_Xxx and Source_AMag_Err_Xxx. The error values are calculated based on the target and ref star photometric error and do not include errors in the ref star magnitudes that are entered. The Source_AMag_Xxx columns are ideal for submitting to the Minor Planet Center.

·         Image Display

·         Added an option to show nearby SIMBAD objects in a web browser when right-clicking within an image with WCS headers

·         Added RGB Composer to Color menu

·         Corrected problem with display of RGB values in the ‘Value’ field above an image

·         Multi-Aperture (MA)

·         Added option to handle apparent magnitude calculations for target stars when magnitudes of reference stars are entered by user

·         Added option to open SIMBAD to objects near the clicked location of a newly defined aperture (when entering apparent magnitude)

·         Added capability to move apertures by clicking and dragging them to a new location

·         Single step now supports two modes of operation after defining apertures. (Option 1) a single click on T1/C1 in each image applies all apertures, performs photometry, and advances to the next image. (Option 2) allows changes to apertures between images but requires a left-click on the T1/C1 star to place apertures. Then after making any aperture corrections,  a right click (or Enter) performs photometry and advances to the next image.

·         Photometer

·         Increased max number of loops on background annulus star removal from 10 to 25 and reduced break threshold from 0.1 to 0.0001.

 

Version 3.0.0 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

Changes

·         Multi_Plot(MP)

·         New Transit light curve fitting facility which can fit simultaneously with detrending

·         Select multiple curves for simultaneous shifting using CONTROL and SHIFT clicks in the shift value box

·         Set the spinner step size for multiple curves using the ABOVE and BELOW options in the ‘Set Stepsize’ panel

·         No longer need to enable “Auto Error” to save a new error column as part of “New Column” creation

·         Auto legend and custom legend can now be displayed at the same time (the custom legend is appended to the auto legend if both are enabled)

·         Added option in file menu to reset all AIJ preferences settings to default values

·         Added Fit panel screen grab save option to ‘save all’

·         Added ‘Save data subset’ option to ‘save all’

·         Fixed error when dragging and dropping measurements table file when no associated plotcfg file is available

·         Image Display

·         Fixed image “stretching” display problem characteristic of OSX 10.10 (Yosemite)

·         Fixed reversed characters in vertical plate scale display characteristic of OSX 10.10 (Yosemite)

·         Fixed problem with “Save image as PNG and JPG for OSX 10.10 (Yosemite)

·         Added “Combine stack slices into single image” option to Image->Process menu (same as Toolbar->Image->Stacks->Z Project)

·         Fixed an issue that caused left and right arrow keys to not step though the stack after clicking tool icons above image. Keyboard focus is now returned to the image canvas after clicking an image toolbar icon.

·         When the center-click option is enabled to center the clicked point in the image display, the mouse pointer now moves to the center as well to enable proper zooming

·         Added option in file menu to reset all AIJ preferences settings to default values

·         Multi-Aperture (MA)

·         Dark current should now be specified in Set_Aperture in units of [e-/pix/sec] (was previously in [e-/pix/exposure]). The value will now be multiplied by the exposure time (if available in FITS header).

·         Fixed bug that caused sexagesimal FITS header values to be incorrectly converted when copying value to MeasurementsTable

·         Fixed bug that caused null pointer exception if “Use previous N apertures” was selected and no apertures were stored

·         Set_Aperture (SA)

·         Dark current should now be specified in units of [e-/pix/sec] (was previously in [e-/pix/exposure]).

·         Stack_Aligner (SA)

·         Fixed bug that caused alignment by WCS headers to fail if the FITS header contained the EPOCH keyword with a value other than 2000.0

·         Fixed single-step mode

·         Astrometry

·         Added support for virtual stacks when “auto save” is not enabled. In this mode, the images with WCS headers will be saved to a subfolder named /wcs

·         Increased timeout waiting for job to set up on nova server from 10 seconds to 20 seconds to increase reliability of connection to the nova.astrometry.net server

·         FITS_Reader

·         Fixed a bug introduced in AIJ that caused 3D FITS images to not open as a stack

Known Problems

·         After fresh install (i.e. with no existing prefs file), table extension uses .xls, but .txt shows in option field. After the option is changed the first time, the two stay in sync.

·         Image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees is not implemented

·         When image display is flipped or rotated, native ImageJ text “ROIs” are displayed flipped or rotated

·         Native ImageJ ROI resizing may require the View options to be set to “Invert None” and “0 degrees” rotation to work properly

·         AIJ hangs if a file is opened from the OS while a blocking dialog window is open

Feature Requests in Roadmap but not in this Version

General

·         Implement a crop function that corrects WCS coordinates.

·         Include get USNO stars plugin and fix link. Also look at mechanism to possibly use those star locations as aperture locations.

·         Scripting (?)

·         Change MacAdapter class to call “About AstroImageJ” and remove “About ImageJ” menu item

·         Calculate RMS for all reasonable stars in image sequence to help point out variables in the field

Multi-Aperture

·         Automatic identification and selection of comparison stars

·         Automatic optimization of aperture size

·         Support for elliptical apertures

·         Support of fractional pixels in aperture

·         Handle apertures that are off the image by issuing log message and setting values to zero

·         Derive width, X-width, and Y-width from radial profile. Also in all modes?

·         Find angle of widest and narrowest FWHM from radial profile and report these values

Data Processor

·         Add ability to filter bias, darks, and flats based on FITS keywords (e.g. CCD-TEMP, EXPTIME) and/or filename and number

·         Add support for subtracting average of overscan region from science image

Image Display

·         Use of “Previous Pan Position” sometimes causes image frame formatting problem

·         Implement image display rotation by 90 and 270 degree

·         Add a stack combination interface in menus above image (KM’s email 3/22/14)

·         Expand “Debayer FITS image” to process a full stack. Ideally the results would be a 2-D stack with color on one slider and slice on the other. Alternatively, separating into the result into different stacks for each color would be acceptable.

Fitting Interface

·         Add MCMC fit parameter error estimation

·         Add sinusoidal fitting capability

Multi-Plot

·         Allow time display in UT on plot

·         Bin data by time

·         Add scroll bars to plots to enable plotting larger than screen size

Stack Aligner

·         Add scale and rotate to alignment algorithm (based on WCS headers)

Astrometry

·         Work with Dustin Lang to implement multiple plate solve jobs per session

 

 

 

Version 2.1.5 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

Changes

·         Multi-Aperture (MA)

·         Multi-Aperture photometry using WCS coordinates rather than x,y coordinates

·         Export and Import apertures in RA/DEC format with option to specify Target vs. Ref star and Centroid vs. No Centroid on a per aperture basis

·         Added support of per aperture centroid control and changed aperture display to indicate centroid vs. non-centroid apertures

·         When defining apertures, alt-left click inverts the sense of centroid for a new aperture and toggles the centroid setting when clicking inside an existing aperture

·         Added Multi-Aperture option to set variable aperture based on radial profile of PSF (to use, select variable aperture and set FHWM factor to 0.00)

·         For centroid operation, added option to write a log message rather than halt the processing of additional apertures/images

·         Fixed bug that caused width, xWidth, and yWidth to be reported incorrectly in the measurements table when using variable aperture mode

·         MA specific measurement table settings moved to Aperture Settings panels to reduce MA panel clutter

·         Stack Aligner (SA)

·         New option to align images using WCS coordinates (no apertures required)

·         Multi-Plot (MP)

·         Optionally calculates and displays light curve standard deviation. For detrended light curves, calculates sigma only within the selected region for fitting.

·         When aperture changed from T to C or C to T in Ref Star Panel, the aperture display automatically updates if an image window is open that has apertures displayed

·          “Add new astronomical data” can now optionally extract RA/Dec values from the measurements table. These values can be added to the table using Set Aperture’s comma separated list of FITS header keywords.

·         Added color code to Reference Star Panel to identify saturated stars

·         Green checkbox background indicates peak aperture pixel less than “Linearity Warning Level”

·         Yellow checkbox background indicates peak aperture pixel more than “Linearity Warning Level” but less than “Saturation Warning Level”

·         Red checkbox background indicates peak aperture pixel higher than “Saturation Warning Level”

·         New option in “Set Aperture” to specific linearity warning level

·         Aperture names in Ref Star Panel now color coded red and green to correspond with aperture color

·         In normalize mode, “Scale” now scales the signal about its average value rather than the absolute normalized value

·         Reduced the default number of data column boxes to 5 in the Multi-plot “Save data subset to file” panel to fit laptop screens better. The default number of boxes can now be set to 1-20 in the data subset panel.

·         Data Processor (DP)

·         Settings not applicable due of the state of other settings are now “grayed-out” (disabled in the GUI). For example, dark scaling based on exposure time requires both Bias Subtraction and Dark Subtraction to be enabled, so the “scale” checkbox in the Dark Subtraction section is disabled unless both subtractions are selected.

·         Drag and drop files and directories from the OS into the DP directory and filename boxes 

·         Master flat images are always normalized before processing starts. This allows the use of the master flats from MaximDL that are not normalized.

·         Added support for drag and drop of apertures file onto DP main panel

·         Added option to either de-bias or not de-bias the master dark (enabled only if bias subtraction is enabled).

·         Added support for removal of ‘pedestal’ added by MaxIm DL

·         Added support for signed integer FITS files

·         Added outlier removal (e.g. cosmic rays/hot pixels) to the “Image Correction” section. Outlier removal will likely affect photometry and should probably not be used in combination with photometry. This feature is primarily intended for “pretty picture” data reduction.

·         The flat-field gradient removal option has been moved from the DP menus to the Flat Division section of the GUI to make it’s setting more obvious.

·         Enhanced and updated tooltip mouse over help

·         Image Display

·         New annotate feature which allows non-destructive display of labels on an image

·         Add custom annotations to image overlay using a right-click at image position

·         Edit or delete an existing annotation by right clicking in the image within the annotation’s defined radius

·         Optionally look up object names from SIMBAD if image has WCS headers

·         Optionally store annotations in FITS header

·         Optionally store astrometry annotations in FITS header

·         Optionally automatically display annotations from FITS header when image is displayed

·         New “Annotate” menu above images to allow FITS header storage and annotation display management

·         New button above images to control display of annotations separate from aperture display

·         For images with WCS, pressing enter after pasting a RA/DEC coordinate pair in either the RA or DEC textbox draws an ROI at that pixel location

·         For images with WCS, a single right click in the image produces an ROI at that pixel location (after centroid if selected) showing the corresponding RA/DEC coordinates

·         Fixed bug that caused Image_Menus->Analyze->Multi-plot to not work

·         Seeing Profile (SP)

·         Now handles defocused stars

·         No longer requires an ROI to be drawn around star (alt-left click near star OR click on star and then select menu option)

·         Plot display has been enhanced

·         Set normalized flux cutoff value (used to set aperture radius) in Aperture Settings

·         Aperture Settings

·         Redesigned panels to be shorter and wider to fit laptop screens better

·         Reorganized to put rarely used table and aperture display settings on “More Settings” Panel

·         Moved all other settings to Main Settings panel

·         Added ‘Linearity Warning’ settings (in addition to ‘Saturation Warning’ settings)

·         Multi-Aperture measurement table settings moved from MA setup panel to Aperture Settings ‘More Settings’ panel

·         Astrometry

·         Support for user control of SIP orders requested from astrometry.net during plate solve

·         Can optionally store annotations/labels in FITS header (see new annotation feature description)

·         Increased notifications of centroid progress during plate solve

·         Allows cancel during centroid operations for plate solves using many stars

·         Fixed bug that caused FITS files with extensions .fit and .fts to not save when using Astrometry

·         WCS

·         Now supports images with EPOCH values different than 2000.0

·         Now supports headers with only CDELT, CRPIX, and CRVAL entries by assuming rotation = 0 (i.e. no Rotation keyword or CD or PC matrix keywords)

·         Coordinate Converter

·         Updated observatory list

Other Bug Fixes

·         Fixed bug that caused FITS header sexagesimal values to not be interpreted properly

·         Fixed bug that caused an error when loading plot config files into Multi-plot before a table was opened

·         Fixed bug that ignored the inner sky radius when calculating sky background, if the inner radius was less than or equal to the aperture radius

·         Fixed WCS code so that it looks at IMAGEW and IMAGEH rather than NAXIS1 and NAXIS2 (helps when images dimensions have been changed within AIJ)

·         Fixed additional problems with image display on small laptop windows (should work down to 700x500 pixel displays now)

·         Fixed “Middle click writes image data to results window” (was inadvertently broken in previous version)

·         Fixed bug that caused back and white values to not be saved in auto and fixed contrast mode

·         Fixed a bug in Astrometry that might have allowed median filtering to corrupt original image file

·         Fixed bug that allowed xWidth = 0 which caused a lockup

Other Changes

·         For compatibility with computers set for a “locale” that uses a comma decimal separator, AIJ adopts a locale to force a dot decimal separator

 

Known Problems

·         Image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees is not implemented

·         When image display is flipped or rotated, native ImageJ text “ROIs” are displayed flipped or rotated

·         Native ImageJ ROI resizing may require the View options to be set to “Invert None” and “0 degrees” rotation to work properly

·         AIJ hangs if a file is opened from the OS while a blocking dialog window is open

Feature Requests in Roadmap but not in this Version

General

·         Scripting (?)

Multi-Aperture

·         Automatic identification and selection of comparison stars

·         Automatic optimization of aperture size

·         Support for elliptical apertures

·         Support of fractional pixels in aperture

Data Processor

·         Add ability to filter bias, darks, and flats based on FITS keywords (e.g. CCD-TEMP, EXPTIME) and/or filename and number

Image Display

·         Implement image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees

Multi-Plot

·         Light curve fitting

·         Bin data by time

·         Add scroll bars to plots to enable plotting larger than screen size

Stack Aligner

·         Add scale and rotate to alignment algorithm (based on WCS headers)

 

Version 2.1.4 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

New Features

·         Added plate solve capability to Data Processor and the AIJ image display via network access to nova.astrometry.net API.

·         Added support for FITS header time keywords UTCSTART (Sophia) and TAIHMS (Sloan), and added space character tolerance in time string

·         Improved centroid method based on Howell, CCD Astronomy, 2nd Ed., p. 105.  A special thanks to Matthew Craig, Minnesota State University Moorhead for writing and contributing the new centroid code.

·         When no data are within normalize x-range, data are normalize by the average of all data (data previously not normalized if no data in user defined x-range).

Bug Fixes

·         Now report error message rather than an exception when UofL update server is not accessible

·         Fixed issue which caused Stack_Aligner to not work after converting an RGB image to a stack using the Color menu options RGB->Images, Images->stack

·         Fixed bug that caused aperture photometry to hang is no valid time keyword is found in FITS header.

·         Fixed a bug that reported and error for aperture sizes <= 1. The input test now allows apertures > 0.

·         Fixed source error calculation that over estimated source error by sqrt(gain). Source counts and source error are still scaled relative to ADU rather than ADU*gain.

·         Fixed bug that caused detrending to fail if NaNs are in detrend data.

·         Fixed bug that caused NaNs to be backfilled improperly when tables of different lengths are merged as new columns.

Changes

·         Reduced vertical space on non-scrollable windows so they fit on a laptop screen as small as 768 pixels tall.

 

Version 2.1.3 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed several issues with display of RGB images related to brightness and contrast control

·         Stack Aligner (align using apertures) is now compatible with RGB images, including support for stacks and virtual stacks

New Features

·         added support for “Find Focused Slices” plugin written by Qingzong TSENG (adapted from “Select Frames with Best Edges” plugin written by Jennifer West) under Process->Select stack images with best focus

·         created a version of  “Find Focused Slices” plugin that supports RGB images (automatically selected using the same menu command above

·         added support for third order non-linearity correction to Data Processor

·         added option to Multi-Aperture to always default to the first slice at MA startup (enable/disable on MA setup panel – will be effective on next MA run)

·         added help panel  to Stack Aligner – help panel opens at start of aperture selection if enabled

Changes

·         The “Value” display above an image now displays the values of “luminance (red,green,blue)” rather than just luminance when the image type is RGB

 

Version 2.1.2 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

Bug Fixes

·         Will now open gzip compressed FITS files for file names ending with “.fit.gz” (“.fits.gz” and “.fts.gz” were already supported)

·         Changing plot width will no longer affect the Y-axis tick mark spacing

·         Fixed error message for images with RA and DEC FITS header keywords that do not contain other required WCS keywords

New Features

·          Multi-plot detrending now includes a step function to detrend meridian flip data. Select Meridian_Flip as the ‘Trend Dataset’ and set the time of the flip in the Multi-plot main panel ‘Meridian Flip’ section.

·         “Save as data subset” can output a column containing -1s before a meridian flip and +1s after then meridian flip (meridian flip x-position is set in Multi-plot main window)

Changes

·         Updated Multi-plot GUI to match Data Processor and AstroCC

·         Updated Multi-plot GUI to be consistent across Windows, OSX, and Linux 

 

Version 2.1.1 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

 

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed lockup that occurred when rolling mouse wheel to adjust plot while plot is updating (introduced by merge of  IJ 1.47i with AIJ 2.1.0)

·         Added work around for apparent Mac OS X Java bug that caused y-direction pixel scale to display backwards

·         Fixed display of detrend coefficients when in “user” mode and when using <shift> , <control>, and <alt> clicks on variable buttons

·         Fixed display of images with small pixel dimensions (images ~< 250 x 250 pixels caused a display formatting problem)

·         Fixed bug causing blank lines in data file to be loaded as NaN (i.e. not a number), blank lines are now ignored when opening a table

·         Fixed a detrending bug that caused a detrend variable to be ignored if a NaN occurred at least once in the detrending variable data column, now only that row of data is ignored in the table

Changes

·         The virtual stack setting in the open image sequence dialog is now persistent across session

·         Added general support for BSCALE and BZERO FITS keywords

·         Added support for opening and saving 8-bit signed and unsigned integer FITS data types

·         Added import to float-32 support for 32-bit signed and unsigned integer and 64-bit float FITS data types

·         Added WCS info to window subtitle

·         Added support for WCS SIN projection (in pixel to WCS direction) (TAN and SIN are now fully supported projections)

·         Added support for older WCS PC matrix FITS header keyword format (i.e. PCxxxyyy)

·         Added support for the first two axes when WCSAXES > 2. CTYPE1 must start with “RA—“, and CTYPE2 must start with “DEC—“. Other axes are ignored.

·         Added WCS menu and moved pixel scale and arrow orientation settings to it

·         Added an option to WCS menu to disable SIP distortion correction for all but TAN projections (for consistency with DS9 WCS coordinate display)

·         Added option to save current WCS image rotation and pixel scale to AIJ preferences for later use with images without WCS headers

·         When north and east arrows and/or pixel scale(s) have been set automatically by WCS, they are displayed yellow. When WCS info is not available, they are displayed red to indicate that the default user settings are being used.

Version 2.1.0 (with ImageJ 1.47i)

Important Bug Fix

·         Fixed problem when writing 32-bit floating point FITS images (bug existed in version 2.0.0, but not in 2.0 beta releases)

Changes

·         Corrected tooltip for BJD_TDB line in Multi-plot “Add new astronomical calculations” panel

·         In FITS reader, BSCALE now defaults to zero in case the keyword is missing in the FITS file

·         Added support for automatically setting north and east arrow orientation and x- and y-direction pixel scales, if WCS information is found in FITS header

·         Changed default keyword for JD_MOBS_UTC from JD_MOBS to JD_UTC, changed HJD_MOBS to HJD_UTC, and BJD_MOBS to BJD_TDB

 

Version 2.0.0 (with ImageJ 1.47a1)

Version 2.0.0 is a major release that supports many new GUI features, saving of aperture settings, plot settings, image displays (including aperture overlay), interactive target vs. comparison star selection, interactive multivariate lightcurve detrending, table column additions, and table manipulation. AstroCC coordinate converter is a new module that provides time and coordinate conversions, resolves target names using SIMBAD, and displays finder field images using sky-map.org.

Changes in this Version

General

·         Updated ImageJ to 1.47a1

·         Added single-click automatic update to AstroImageJ toolbar under Help->Update AstroImageJ

·         Added ‘Release Notes’ button to Help->Update_AstroImageJ panel

·         New file naming convention requires “Preferences” to be reset to default (or advanced users can rename files as listed in the next four bullets). This includes memory settings for Windows and OS X.

·         Windows launcher is now AstroImageJ.exe (rather than ImageJ.exe) and icon changed to Saturn

·         Preferences are now stored at AIJ_Prefs.txt rather than IJ_Prefs.txt

·         In Linux and Windows the preferences directory is now .astroimagej rather than .imagej (Mac is still /Library/Preferences)

·         The Java and memory configuration file for windows is now AstroImageJ.cfg rather than ImageJ.cfg

·          

Image Display

New Features

·         Added a feature to allow the image display with apertures to be saved to a .png or .jpeg file

·         Added ‘Open Apertures’ and ‘Save Apertures’ menu items to allow the currently defined apertures to be saved to a file and to reload those at a later time

·         Drag and drop new image or  aperture files onto displayed image to open automatically

·         Added ‘Save All’ menu option to allow the user to define file name suffixes and to save the image display, plot display, plot configuration, table, aperture settings, and log file with one operation.

·         Added slice delete icon

·         Added centroid on/off icon

·         Added icon to display apertures that are currently saved in preferences

·         Added FITS header editing feature

·         Middle mouse button now optionally centers on the clicked location 

·         Added pixel scale display option and supporting settings

·         Moved image scale (brightness and contrast) settings from ‘Preferences’ to ‘Scale’ menu and added ‘fixed brightness and contrast (per image slice)’ option

·         Added ‘Preferences’ option to display ‘mean’ value in live aperture rather than ‘peak’ value

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed bug that caused a lockup when the user is zooming or panning while DP is loading a new image into the display

Multi-Aperture

New Features

·         Added option to display a help window during the aperture selection process

·         Added option to define more than one ‘Target’ star

·         ‘Target’ and ‘Comparison’ designations can be exchanged with a shift-left-click in an existing aperture

Bug Fixes

·          

Multi-Plot

New Features

·         Interactive ‘Target’ vs. ‘Comparison’ star management panel allows comparison star set to be changed without rerunning Multi-Aperture

·         Multivariate interactive lightcurve detrending

·         Detrend regions can be selected with mouse in plot (control-left-click, control-right-click, etc. – tooltips in GUI)

·         Normalization based on selectable regions of data

·         Save a subset of table columns for submitting data to collaborators or websites

·         Save and Open plot configurations to/from a file

·         Save and Open plot templates to/from a file (same as previous bullet except uses a fixed user defined path name)

·         Merging of two or more tables by row or by column

·         Add new columns to table based on plotted data

·         Drag and drop table, plot configuration, and aperture setting files to Multi-plot windows to open (or use menu commands)

·         Save plot image as .png and .jpg

·         ‘Save All’ menu item for saving image display, plot image, plot configuration, data table, apertures, and log files with one command, based on user defined file name suffixes.

·         Add new astronomical data columns to table from Coordinate Converter based on input of time from each table row

·         Table transpose under ‘Table’ menu exchanges row and column values for applications such a H-R diagram creation

·         Error columns are now automatically selected when plotting Multi-Aperture created data

·         When opening data generated by other programs, the Y-data values in magnitude can be converted to relative flux for additional processing

·         Added color code to each row in Y-data panel

·         Added button above Y-data selections that opens help panel to display data column naming convention for Multi-Aperture produced data

·         X-axis can optionally be displayed in terms of orbital phase, days since Tc, or hours since Tc

·         Y-axis can option be display inverted

·         Magnitude can be displayed as negative magnitude so that plotting is in the same sense as non-magnitude-based data

·         Holding shift while moving mouse in plot image can optionally display the corresponding slice in an open image stack

·         When data is opened from a .txt file, the delimiter used is ‘white space’

Bug Fixes

·         Multi-plot settings can be changed while data points are being added to a plot by Multi-Aperture without causing a lockup

Data Processor

New Features

·         New GUI layout

·         Added DP Coordinate Converter instance for calculating astronomical values (time, coordinates, airmass, etc.)

·         FITS header updates based on data calculated by DP Coordinate Converter

·         Target can be set from FITS header target name and resolved by SIMBAD, or from FITS header RA and DEC values, or by directly entering coordinates in DP Coordinate Converter

·         Observatory location can be set by name from FITS header, or by latitude and longitude from FITS header, or by manually entering into DP Coordinate Converter

·         The gzip file compression format is now supported for both input and output. Currently the headers are compressed in addition to the data.

·         Optionally saves a the plot image and field image to static file names which can be used for display in other applications or on websites

Stack Aligner

New Features

·         Now supports virtual stacks by saving each aligned image to a file

Bug Fixes

·             

AstroCC Coordinate Converter

New Features

·         This new feature adds the capability to calculate various time and coordinate formats from a target location, observatory location, and any number of time formats

·         Optionally uses SIMBAD to resolve target name to coordinates and proper motion

·         Links to sky-map.org to display finder field

·         Supports proper motion, precession, nutation, stellar aberration, and atmospheric refraction calculations

·         Supports local, UTC, JD_UTC, Heliocentric JD_UTC (HJD), and Barycentric JD_TDB (BJD) including leap second management

·         Shows phase of moon, and altitude and proximity of major solar system objects

·         Three instances supported: (1) independent instance under full user control, (2) Data Processor instance for FITS header calculations, (3) Multi-Plot instance for addition of new data columns in table

Bug Fixes

 

Known Problems

·         Image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees is not implemented

·         When image display is flipped or rotated, native ImageJ text “ROIs” are displayed flipped or rotated

·         Native ImageJ ROI resizing may require the View options to be set to “Invert None” and “0 degrees” rotation to work properly

·         AIJ hangs if a file is opened from the OS while a blocking dialog window is open

Feature Requests in Roadmap but not in this Version

General

·         Light curve fitting

·         Scripting (?)

Multi-Aperture

·         Automatic identification and selection of comparison stars

·         Automatic optimization of aperture size

·         Support of fractional pixels in aperture

Data Processor

·         Light curve fitting

Image Display

·         Implement directional arrow support according to WCS headers

·         Implement image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees

·         Add additional color image manipulation tools to ‘Color’ menu

Multi-Plot

·         Light curve fitting

Stack Aligner

·         Wrap to beginning of stack is started process on slice number > 1

 

Version 1.1 (with ImageJ 1.45l)

Changes in this Version

General

·         Updated ImageJ to 1.45l

·         Changed Toolbar name to AstroImageJ (was ImageJ)

Image Display

New Features

·         Added capability to set north and east directional arrows independently

·         North is now referenced to the +y-axis and East is referenced to +x-axis

·         Added auto contrast and brightness parameter settings

·         Changed text buttons to icon buttons with tool tips

·         Added button icons to control sky background annuli display, source ID display, and source integrated count display

·         Added button icons to control clearing of all ROIs, run multi-aperture, and run stack align

Bug Fixes

·         Aperture text is now displayed properly in when images are displayed flipped/rotated

·         Fixed problem with display of RGB stacks when displaying less than full dynamic range

Multi-Aperture

New Features

·         Added option to set aperture radii in Multi-Aperture setup window

·         Added option to enable or disable repositioning of aperture to object centroid

·         Added option to plot light curve data while Multi-Aperture is running

·         Renamed “ratio” to “rel_flux_XX”

·         “Show total comparison star counts” now adds N = # of Apertures of tot_C_cnts-XX columns. The reported columns are:
(Qty 1) tot_C_cnts  = Source-sky_C2+…+ Source-sky_CN   (i.e. the sum of all comparison star net counts)
(Qty N-1)  tot_C_cnts-CN =  tot_C-cnts - Source-sky_CN    (i.e. the sum of all comparison star net counts less one of the comparison stars -– useful for determining effects of bad comp. star)

·         Added feature to label each aperture with an identifying number that matches the MeasurementsTable designations

·         Added sliders for slice and aperture selection

·         Added aperture delete (click on existing aperture), add (click a new star), renumber (shift click a new star or existing star to renumber it as T1)

·         Added capability to make changes to stored apertures before processing start (make changes as described in previous bullet, and then right click to start processing)

·         Added table column for total comparison integrated count error (tot_comp_error)

·         Added ratio column for each comparison star

·         Improved centroid function (for single aperture operation also)

Bug Fixes

·          

Multi-Plot

New Features

·         Added support for true plot zooming (zooming previously scaled the bit mapped plot). Zoom in and out with scroll wheel or left click repeatedly to zoom-in and right-click once to zoom-out to the full view.

·         Added support for interactive data section and deletion. To use the feature, press the shift key and move the mouse curser over the plot. The measurements table row with an X-data value (of the first curve enabled for plotting) nearest the cursor position’s X-value will be highlighted (selected). A left mouse click while continuing to press the shift key will delete the corresponding row from the table.

·         All data columns entries can be sorted to a user definable order. Using this feature, the most frequently used data columns can be kept at the top of the list.

·         Added an option to display predicted ingress and egress markers on the plot. The time can be entered directly as the fractional part of Julian Date or as UT time in HH:MM or HH:MM:SS format. After pressing <enter>, UT will be converted to the fractional part of Julian Date.

·         Added new data point color selections.

·         Added individual x-data column for each y-data column

·         Added “operator” selection called “centroid distance” that calculates the distance between two aperture locations. To use, select a “Y-data” column related to the first aperture (e.g. ratio4) and a “Y-operator” column corresponding to the second aperture (e.g. ratio5), and then select “centroid distance” as the operator. By default, the distance in pixels is reported. To report distance in arcsec, go to the main panel “Preferences” drop down menu and select “Change pixel scale…” and enter a number for arcsecs/pixel and then select “Use pixel scale when calculating distance”.

·         Reduced horizontal size of Y-data panel by combining certain GUI components. Y-error, Y-operator, and Y-operator error features are now enabled by changing the pull down menu data column selectors to a non-blank setting. Plotting relative to the displayed plot range (i.e. fit to plot) or plotting using Y-values directly is selected using the “Fit” check box. The same two scale and shift spinner boxes are used to accomplish both tasks, depending on the “Fit” setting. The “grab” button was replaced by an icon to save space. The “legend type” radio buttons have been replaced by icons to save space.

·         A toolbar icon was added for all areas where extra option setting are available by right clicking. Either method can now be used to access the additional settings.

Bug Fixes

·          “Y-data columns” panel non-wide mode now displays properly at startup 

·         Corrected scale and shift display values to match actual setting

·         Disable plot zoom function

·         Changed plot image to be displayed at 100% and with a size specified in the main plot window

Data Processor

New Features

·         Added option run Multi-Aperture and Multi-plot directly from Data Processor window (a macro is no longer needed for these functions)

·         Added an Icon that provides direct access to aperture setting

·         Added an Icon that brings up the Multi-Aperture settings the next time it runs.

·         Added an Icon that deletes all data from the measurements table

·         Grouped certain settings that are infrequently changed under pull down menus for better organization and to save space

·         Added feature to allow user to enter (or cut and paste) both RA and DEC in sexagesimal format into the RA field to populate both RA and DEC fields

Stack Aligner

New Features

·          

Bug Fixes

·          Forces variable aperture usage to off and aperture reposition to on   

Known Problems

·         Image Display maximize and return to normal corrupts display (drag window edge instead)

·         Image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees is not implemented

·         When image display is flipped or rotated, native ImageJ text “ROIs” are displayed flipped or rotated

·         ROI resizing may require the View options to be set to “Invert None” and “0 degrees” rotation to work properly

·         AIJ hangs if a file is opened from the OS while a blocking dialog window is open

Feature Requests in Roadmap but not in this Version

General

·         Add light curve detrending and fitting capability

Multi-Aperture

·         Automatic identification and selection of comparison stars

Data Processor

·         Implement BJD calculations

Image Display

·         Implement directional arrow support according to WCS headers

·         Implement image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees

·         Allow aperture radii to be updated directly in image window

·         Add file type (i.e. 8, 16, 32, RGB) manipulation from menu bar

·         Add a menu to the menu bar that combines various RGB image manipulation tools

·         Put middle click/drag measurements in a MeasurementsTable rather than a log window

Multi-Plot

·         Add ability to save plot settings as a template

MeasurementsTable

·         Allow column selection and cut/copy/paste

Stack Aligner

·         Allow user to left- click drag image to manually align with a reference image

Miscellaneous

·         Fix various Linux terminal window error messages

 

 

Version 1.0 (with ImageJ 1.45l)

Changes in this Version

General

·         Updated ImageJ to 1.45l

·         Added AstroImageJ version information at ImageJ/Help/About ImageJ…

·         Changed ImageJ/Help/Update ImageJ.. to open AstroImageJ webpage

·         Now fully compatible with Apple OS X

Image Display

New Features

·         Added a new set of “Zoom” buttons above the image. “Fit” fits the image to the window, “Out” zooms out, “In” zooms in, “In x8” zooms in fast. Click at the point on the image where the zoom should be centered before using zooming in, otherwise, the zoom will operate on the center of the image. The image data rotation features are now available in the “Process” menu.

·         Double left-click on the image to perform a fast zoom in (i.e. “In x8”) at that point. Double left click to zoom out to fill the window with the image. Triple left clip zooms out to fit the entire image in the window leaving white space if the aspect ratio of the image and window are different.

·         Added north/east direction indicator arrows with setting to allow user to specify the angle counter-clockwise from the default of north = up

·         Added a preferences setting to set the size of the zoom indicator box

·         Added view menu settings to disable/enable the display of the zoom box, x-y direction arrows, and the north/east direction arrows

·         Added pixel scale setting under preferences menu. When set to a value other than zero, middle click-drag distance measurements are displayed as arclength.

·         Added “fixed min and max histogram values” under Preferences menu. Enabling this option allows values to be directly entered in the “min” and “max” boxes below the histogram.  In this mode the histogram range will stay at these fixed values until changed by the user. When not in this mode, the values are automatically set to the min and max pixel values of the image.

·         Shift left-click drag is a short-cut to draw an oval region of interest (ROI) on the image

·         Shift left-click is a short-cut to perform a single aperture measurement

·         Control left-click drag is a short-cut to draw a rectangular ROI on the image

·         Alt left-click drag is a short-cut to draw a line ROI on the image

·         Press and hold “Tab” to move and resize ROIs. Astronomy mode is temporarily exited when “Tab” is held down, so any native ImageJ function can be performed during that time.

·         Added several menu items to the “File” Menu to provide various file opening methods and saving formats

·         Added “Edit” menu which contains menu items for editing aperture settings, measurement settings, FITS header entries, and stack parameters

·         Added “Process” menu which contains various menu items for reducing image data and making various other changes to the data

·         Added “Analyze” menu which contains various menu items for making measurements on an image and producing plots and tables

Bug Fixes

·         The mouse “aperture” display now updates properly when the aperture settings have been changed

·         When opening an image, the window no longer flashes on screen multiple times before finally opening

Multi-Aperture

New Features

·         The total number of apertures is no longer required in the setup window. A right click in the image window will end aperture selection, thus setting the number of apertures per image. The number of apertures shown in the set up window is now the maximum number of apertures.

·         The setup window now shows the number of stored apertures.

·         Left click drag can now be used to pan the image during aperture selection.

·         A new option to is available to enable double left-click fast zoom-in and double right-click fast zoom-out while selecting aperture positions. This option introduces a slight delay in aperture placement on the image and can be left disabled if desired.

·         The first aperture selected is now displayed in green while the remaining apertures are displayed in red

·         The aperture text font size has been increased

·         Added a feature to check if Multi-Aperture may already be running since it is easy to erroneously start another Multi-Aperture run when in single-step mode.

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed erratic behavior after aborting a run using <escape>

·         Fixed erratic behavior after ending a single-step run using a right mouse click

Data Processor

New Features

·         Combined the two science image “Filename Pattern” fields into one field with wildcard support (? matches any single character, * matches any number of characters)

·         Added a “Browse” button next to the Filename Pattern fields. When a file is opened using this button, the directory path is sent to the Primary Directory field and the filename is sent to the Filename Pattern field. If an underscore character is in the filename, any characters between the underscore and the file type suffix are automatically replaced with a “*”.

·         A “File Number Filter” “Exclude” string is now allowed, so that numbers that are common in a set of filenames can be ignored, which simplifies the setting of “Min” and “Max” numbers for filename number filtering. This field can optionally be automatically updated when a new filename pattern is entered directly or opened using the browser.

·         Changed bias, dark, and flat "Filename Base" to "Filename Pattern" with wild card support

·         Removed .fits file type requirement for both input and output files

·         Master calibration files now allow (require) the file type to be specified

·         Processed files can now be written to hard drive in any format supported by ImageJ by setting the “Format” to the desired file extension type (i.e.  .fits .jpg .tiff etc.)

Stack Aligner

New Features

·         Single step mode is now available in stack aligner, allowing image alignment for image shifts larger than the aperture size 

Known Problems

·         Image Display maximize and return to normal corrupts display (drag window edge instead)

·         Image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees is not implemented

·         When image display is flipped or rotated, any text displayed in an overlay is flipped or rotated

·         Image display control buttons sometimes lose color

·         ROI resizing may require the View options to be set to “Invert None” and “0 degrees” rotation to work properly

·         AIJ hangs if a file is opened from the OS while a blocking dialog window is open

Feature Requests in Roadmap but not in this Version

General

·         Add light curve detrending and fitting capability

Multi-Aperture

·         Label comparison star numbers in image overlay

·         Automatic identification and selection of comparison stars

Data Processor

·         Implement BJD calculations

Image Display

·         Implement directional arrow support according to WCS headers

·         Implement image display rotation by 90 and 270 degrees

·         Allow aperture radii to be updated directly in image window

·         Correct flipped aperture text display in image overlay

·         Add “Auto Scale” user settings for customize the resulting contrast and brightness

·         Add file type (i.e. 8, 16, 32, RGB) manipulation from menu bar

·         Add a menu to the menu bar that combines various RGB image manipulation tools

·         Put middle click/drag measurements in a MeasurementsTable rather than a log window

Multi-Plot

·         Add x-axis choice to all y-datasets

·         Change plot zooming to zoom-in on data range, rather than zoom-in on bit map

·         Add ability to save plot settings as a template

MeasurementsTable

·         Improve table update speed for large tables

·         Allow row selection and cut/copy/paste

Stack Aligner

·         Allow user to left- click drag image to manually align with a reference image

Miscellaneous

·         Fix various Linux terminal window error messages