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<