AstroImageBrowser 1.1.2 review
DownloadImages of astronomical objects in any part of the sky can be downloaded, manipulated, overlayed (with a grid, camera/CCD geometries, object labels or other pictures), converted, scaled, colorized, annotated, blinked, saved, cached and printed with AstroImageBrowser.
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Images of astronomical objects in any part of the sky can be downloaded, manipulated, overlayed (with a grid, camera/CCD geometries, object labels or other pictures), converted, scaled, colorized, annotated, blinked, saved, cached and printed with AstroImageBrowser.
AstroImageBrowser is particularly useful as an astrophotography planning tool but can equally well be used to explore or browse astronomical objects. After you have planned and taken your picture you can use AstroImageBrowser to superimpose it on the DSS image.
People interested in Astronomy should find AstroImageBrowser useful and fun even if they don't have a telescope.
Here are some key features of "AstroImageBrowser":
download Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) images from one of six all-sky surveys
continuously adjustable download image sizes up to 1 square degree
local caching of images to save redownloading image or to use AstroImageBrowser offline
cache images are compressed to user's preferred format (BMP, JIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF with compression and quality when available)
cache browser window to review available cache files with hyperlinks to reveal in Finder or open
colorization of DSS images with color schemes under user control or choose from presets such as inverse and sepia
over 13, internal database objects in the NGC, IC and Messier catalogs
database constellation, magnitude, size and coordinate information
instantaneous search based on search text even during entry
save favourite searches under search menu (hit return after completing search text)
RA/Dec coordinate specification to arbitrarily position DSS images
locates nearest deep sky object to specified RA/Dec coordinates
objects labels overlaid on DSS images
color and transparency control of labels
RA/Dec grid overlay with color control and control over major and minor spacing of grid lines
continuous mouse over RA/Dec readout
CCD/DSLR/webcam geometry overlay with support for SBIG CCD Cameras, Canon 10D 300D 350D 20D, 1.25" eyepiece with maximum 27mm field stop, 35mm film, 2" eyepiece with maximum 46mm field stop, Starlight Xpress SXV-H9C, ToUCam Pro webcam, Meade LPI, Meade DSI Pro, ...
color control for CCD/DSLR/webcam geometry overlay
CCD/DSLR/webcam offset and rotation controls
telescope system focal length control with automatic image dimensioning
option and option-shift mouse down control of CCD/DSLR/webcam geometry overlay
saving of overlaid image in any image format (BMP, JIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF etc) at any size
printing/saving as PDF of image with automatic landscape/portrait orientation to maximise printed image size
saving of overlaid image as an Astroimagebrowser XML "Snapshot" file which holds the image, camera geometry, color settings, etc
save and open XML "Color Skin" files which hold color information for colorization and image overlay colors
customizable toolbar
search and control retractable drawer
multithreaded processing especially during downloading and saving
overlay graphics use vector graphics with no resolution limit
picture overlay using either drag and drop image from the Finder or by entering a URL
scale, rotate and translate picture overlay
save and open "Picture Archive" overlay files with either image data imbedded or specified by a URL
opacity adjustment and blinking of Picture overlay for easy registration with DSS image.
What's New:
The image display engine has been improved.
A bug which caused the application to quit when saving to the cache in a thread on Intel machines has been fixed.
If you do get a crash at any stage then find the file called AstroImageBrowser.crash.log in the Finder and email it to the developer.
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