ACP Planner 3.2.2 Release Notes (October 2008)

ACP Planner 3.2.2 is a maintenance update. It includes two new features and some bug fixes:

Product Improvements

1. A new Image Defaults preference has been added to make dithering default to 'on' in newly added targets and imports.
2. The Sky Click Catcher now offers to remove what looks like an SDB catalog prefix (e.g. "cousins: HD 12345" ) from the target name before creating the target in Planner's list.

Bug Fixes

1. The importer for TheSky Data has been fixed for a crash where the clipboard contains fewer than three lines. It now properly reports that the data is not valid TheSky data.
2. Saving plans in RTML no longer crashes if the plan contains calibration (dark/bias), cooler control, or dome control items. These are not supported in Scheduler and are now alerted as not supported, giving the user a chance to remote those items from the list.
3. RTML export no longer crashes if calibration frames, cooler control, or dome control items are in the plan. It now properly alerts that these items are not supported by Scheduler nd permits the user to remove them from the plan list. The documentation for RTML has been fixed to include those limitations.

ACP Planner 3.2 Release notes (September 2008)

ACP Planner 3.2 is a minor update and includes a few new features plus the inevitable bug fixes.

Product Improvements

1. Many changes were made to allow planning more than 24 hours in the future. Note that no warnings are given for such targets, and the main target list still does not show dates by design.
2. A new Search Names feature has been added to allow a Deep Sky target type to have its name checked against the MiniSAC catalog. This requires that MiniSAC be installed. Instructions are provided.
3. Most advisory popup boxes have been changed to balloon help.
4. A new preference for turning off balloon help popups has been added.
5. If the ASCOM MiniSAC deep sky catalog is installed locally, new options for searching/validating deep sky target names will become visible.
6. The ReadMe that appears at the end of installation has been updated and contains suggestions to view the 2008 Planner videos and to install MiniSAC.
7. Timing features are now disabled by default. This is a result of feedback from new users who were baffled by the target timing features.

Bug Fixes

1. Newly created calibration frames no longer trigger an "unsaved changes" warning.
2. Off-by-one errors in importers have been corrected.
3. Help for importing from TheSky Data Wizard was inadvertently omitted from 3.1 help. It is now included.
4. The preset list was invisible when capturing videos, this has been fixed.
5. The remote login test button now requires a non-blank domain field.
6. Some advisory messages (now in balloons) have been reworded for clarity.

ACP Planner 3.1a Release notes (November, 2007)

ACP Planner 3.1a is a minor update. It was released mainly to provide direct uploading of plans to a remote observatory, without having to go through the Share Your Sky! browser interface. A few other handy things were added, and some interface annoyances were smoothed out.

Product Improvements

1. Reusable plans (#waituntil has a time only). Recommended only for observatories running ACP 5.1 Hot Fix 1 or later. Older versions will wait for times in the recent past, for up to a day!
2. Direct upload of plans (observing and flat) to a remote observatory.
3. A new button "Quick FOVI" has been added to TheSky Plan Capture. This provides quick access to the J2000 RA/Dec and PA of the FOVI so you can fill in a Share Your Sky (browser) single target form directly.
4. New startup events (open and chill) may be included in a plan. This is disabled if timing features are disabled.
5. Offer to run on local ACP does not show if current observatory profile contains remote login info.
6. Balloon tips on filters in Preferences now always show, and if filter entry is enabled, the tip advises dusk flat ordering.
7. The main window has been reorganized slightly to make it easier to navigate.
8. Planner no longer makes any changes to the Starry Night telescope control plugin. If you want to use the ACP telescope control plugin, you must install it to Starry Night manually.

Bug Fixes

1. The "Start imaging this target at" time selector in the Add/Edit target window no longer causes the OK button to disable when rolling across midnight.
2. Accessibility tab ordering on main window has been corrected.
3. Several user interface problems with leaving items enabled at inappropriate times (like when there are no targets in the list or a cal target is selected) have been corrected.
4. Changes to a cal target resulting in changed elapsed time are now properly handled.

ACP Planner 3.0 Release Notes (September, 2007)

ACP Planner 3.0 is a major update. The most significant new feature is its ability to load and save profiles for multiple observatories. See the lists below for the other things that are new or improved.

Product Improvements

1. You can now easily make plans for multiple observatories (with different filter sets, time zones, equipment, and timing settings). After setting up preferences (including a new observatory name field), you can save the settings in a file, and load them later. They can also be distributed from an ACP/Share Your Sky! observatory for remote users.
2. It is now possible to insert dark and bias frames into plans.
3. Importing data from TheSky's Data Wizard is now supported.

Bugs Fixed

1. Numerous quirks resulting from the introduction of the "lenient timing" option have been fixed. This was generally a bad idea, and now you can turn off timing and visualization completely for new users and testing purposes.
2. The "Start in ACP now" option has been fixed.
3. If timing features are disabled, Planner no longer disables Starry Night time flow on startup.
4. PA of 360 or greater from TheSky is now wrapped into the correct range.

ACP Planner 2.2 Release Notes (August 2007)

ACP Planner 2.2 is a minor update, motivated by discovery of an additional problem in TheSky Click Catcher. A couple of other buglets and a few product improvement suggestions were picked up in this release as well, addressing plan portability and use across time zones.

Product Improvements

1. Timing restrictions for "target starts in the past" have been relaxed so that plans with start times in the past can still be started. A guard band of 30 minuutes now exists, and the final plan-save error has been changed to a warning.
2. Plan portability between observatories located in different countries has been enhanced. Dates produced by Planner are now always in US English format. ACP 5 already explicitly understands this format, independent of the Windows locale and script engine language.
3. Local times displayed in Planner and generated plans can now be set for the time zone of the observatory. This makes it much easier when planning for a remote observatory in a different time zone.
4. If the above option is enabled, Starry Night will automatically set the time zone offset in Planner so that local times in generated plans match those displayed in the planetarium (times for the location of the observatory). This further facilitates planning for a remote observatory, as local times shown in the planetarium and the plan will all match up. This is not supported for TheSky (limitation of TheSky).
5. It is now possible to enable both dawn flats and observatory shutdown. ACP 5 already carries a #shutdown request from the main plan into the autoflat process, so it's not necessary to separately specify #dawnshutdown in dawn flat plans.

Bug Fixes

1. Another problem with time control and target sequencing has been fixed in TheSky Click Catcher. This one caused the second and subsequent targets to fail updating time and allowing addition of more targets. The problem was introduced in 2.1.
2. The problem where plans created late in the evening for starting after midnight would be refused for "starts in the past" was fixed. This was actually a more general problem of date crossing, and the general problem has been fixed.
3. The state of the planetarium clock is no longer changed if Planner's timing features are disabled.

ACP Planner 2.1 Release Notes (June 2007)

ACP Planner 2.1 is a minor update. The main things addressed are some incompatibilities with recent hotfixes of TheSky, and a new mode where timing visualization features can be disabled.

Product Improvements

1. The number of filter sets has been increased from 6 to 8 on the main window and the presets window.
2. A new option has been added to disable the target timing features, turning Planner into a simple me-too "click-to-capture" tool. This feature was added for those who find it inconvenient or confusing to have Planner set up the timing and positions of their targets.
3. RTML exporting (for ACP Scheduler) has been enhanced:
   1. If the minimum altitude is set to 0, a Horizon constraint is not created.
   2. A checkbox has been added which allows the Moon Avoidance Lorentzian constraint to be optional in plans.
   3. A selector has been added which allows control over the added Sky Condition constraint.
4. The TheSky Click Capture applet has some cosmetic improvements, including a legend describing mouse-wheel time control.
5. The Starry Night ACP telescope plugin now displays the current sky position angle (PA) as well as rotating the FOV indicator to the PA.
6. The Starry Night preset "ACP Planner Starter Options" has been updated. See Getting Started with Starry Night.
7. Getting Started with Starry Night has been enhanced to include information for setting Brightness/Contrast preferences so that stars display in a natural way all the way down to Mag 19+ (if online, allowing downloading of faint stars). Also, enhanced display setup instructions have been added.

Bug Fixes

1. Several problems have been fixed in the TheSky Click Capture applet. These related to compatibility issues with TheSky hotfixes that came out after the release of Planner 2.0.
2. The Starry Night ACP telescope plugin now correctly gets the current imager sky position angle (PA) of the imager for the FOV indicator's rotation angle.
3. The tip of day window is no longer shown if the planner is started from Starry Night or TheSky. This was a particularly ugly problem when using the Sky Click Catcher.

ACP Planner 2.0 Release Notes (March, 2007)

ACP Planner 2.0 is the second major release of Planner, and reflects inputs received from users over the course of the year 2006. It maintains its independence from ACP, TheSky, and StarryNight (though it can take advantage of the latter two for visualization). Plans produced by Planner 2.0 should be run in ACP 5.0 or later (there is a compatibility mode for ACP 4.x and CCD Autopilot though), and exported RTML requires ACP Scheduler 2.0.

Product Improvements

1. Plans are now created in ACP 5.0's new "compact" format for multi-filter target imaging.
2. Creating new targets with the "Add New Target" command, as well as editing previously captured, imported, or manually created targets, has been substantially expanded. These items may be adjusted after capturing a target from the planetarium or importing as mosaic frames (see below):
   1. Support for named deep-sky objects, minor planets, and major planets has been added.
   2. Coordinates for the target can be retrieved from a plate-solved FITS image.
   3. For solar system bodies, orbital tracking can now be enabled.
   4. Automatic dithering for repeated exposures may now be specified.
   5. The minimum altitude (for ACP Scheduler's Horizon constraint) may be specified.
3. Support for importing mosaics from Software Bisque's TheSky has been added.
4. Support for importing observing lists from SkyTools has been added.
5. Applying a preset automatically updates the observing time for the target. It is no longer necessary to separately click the Update button after applying a preset.
6. A new "ripple editing" feature has been added. If a target's ending time becomes later than the start time of the subsequent target, Planner will offer to push the start times of subsequent targets out in order to make room for the newly expanded observing time of the modified target. Note that the end time may change due to a change of the start time and/or an increase in the time needed for specified exposures. Ripple editing will not move targets back in time to close up time gaps.
7. It is now possible to adjust the default count, interval, and binning assigned to newly created targets. These are new Preferences settings.
8. #waituntil directives in generated plans now has the local time in comments
9. Exported RTML now has elements needed to activate Scheduler 2.0's new repeat count feature.
10. It is now possible with all Planner targets to access and modify the minimum altitude (Horizon) constraint that is included in RTML exports.
11. Exported RTML now includes a default Moon Avoid and Sky Condition "good" constraint.
12. Clicking the Reset button with an empty plan and no filters configured no longer results in a fatal error of Planner.
13. Plug in support for Starry Night Pro and Pro Plus V6 has been added.