CCDOPS for Windows
Version 5.48
January 30, 2008
This
document describes the changes made to CCDOPS for Windows Version 5 software
since it was released.
EXTREMELY
IMPORTANT: _
If
you're about to use an SBIG USB camera for the first time on any computer
please follow the directions in the "Installing USB" App Note on you
CD-ROM or on our web site <www.sbig.com>.
Also
anytime you upgrade your CCDOps you should also upgrade your Drivers
using the SBIG Driver Checker utility as follows:
If you
have previously installed the Driver Checker and have an Internet connection on
this machine:
1) Run
the driver checker.
2) Click the
Download button to download the latest drivers.
3) Click the
Update button to update your System.
If you
haven’t installed the Driver Checker do this:
1) Download
the Driver checker from our web site.
2) Run the
Driver Checker.
3) Click the
Update button to update your System.
_
Revision
History
Changes
made through 5.48
·
Added
the ability to take Square and Partial Frames based on a percentage of the Full
Frame in the Grab, Track and Accumulate and Self Guide commands.
·
Added
the Calculate Bias Image command to the Utility menu.
·
Allows
a Huge Track box at 64 x 64 pixels in the AO commands.
·
Added
support for the CFW-1603.
Changes
made through 5.47 Build 8
·
Fixed
bug where Shutter in External Guide Head was not closing for dark frames in the
AO Self Guide and Dual CCD View commands.
Changes
made through 5.47 Build 7
·
Added
the ability to Calibrate and AO Self Guide using the External Tracking CCD for
use with the MOAG.
Changes
made through 5.47 Build 6
·
Allows
Fixed a bug where Auto-Rotated ST-4K images had the X and Y pixel sizes
swapped.
·
Added
the ability to extract SRGB from Single Shot Color images.
·
Fixed
a bug where were being shown as rotated from pixel height/width standpoint
instead of only ST-4K images.
·
Added
burst mode to the TDI command that allows you to dwell for a period of time
after so many rows. This allows you to
use the TDI command to take full width variable height snapshot sequences for
measuring seeing.
Changes
made through 5.47 Build 2
·
Allows
delays of up to 999 seconds (instead of 99) in the Focus and Auto Grab modes.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Self Guide command where when you selected Guide To Cursor on
subsequent images the Guide To position would be incorrectly displayed.
Changes
made through 5.47
·
With
establishing a link to the camera, if an AO-8 is detected the software gives
you the ability to use default Calibration Vectors bypassing the need for
calibrating the AO-8.
Changes
made through 5.46 Build 3
·
With
the ST-4K cameras, rotate the imaging CCD image clockwise so it matches the
orientation of the tracking CCD.
Changes
made through 5.46 Build 2
·
Fixed
a bug that would stop the CFW-6A from calibrating.
Changes
made through 5.46 Build 1
·
Added
support for the ST-4K.
Changes
made through 5.45 Build 8
·
Added
the ability to Filter Warm Pixels from the Focus mode and Auto Grab modes.
·
Added
internal SBIG test code for cooling the cameras upon establishing a link.
Changes
made through 5.45 Build 7
·
When
centering the AO at the end of various commands use the driver’s Center command
instead of just making a move.
·
Position
the Calibration Results dialog at the center-bottom of screen so you can see
the calibration happening.
·
Added
nudge controls to the Auto Guide Mode dialog allow nudging the guide-to
position.
·
Added
Launch Alt CCDOps item to the File menu
Changes
made through 5.45 Build 3
·
Added
additional support for the ST Motor Focuser.
Changes
made through 5.45 Build 2
·
Added
support for the ST Motor Focuser.
Changes
made through 5.45
·
Added
support for Custom Biorad version of TDI.
Changes
made through 5.44 Build 4
·
Added
the ability to Auto Grab JPEG images and JPEG images without an index.
·
Cleaned
up some of the production CFW testing code.
Changes
made through 5.44 Build 2
·
Fixed
a bug that every time you established a link to an STL it would set the CFW
type to CFW-L.
Changes
made through 5.44
·
Updated
production test software.
·
Added
support for the new I2C based CFW-9, CFW-L8 and CFW-L8G color filter wheels.
·
Added
“*.fits” to the types of files that show up in the FITS listing of the Open
dialog.
Changes
made through 5.41 Build 7
·
Added
production support for the new KAI-11002 based STL-11K cameras.
Changes
made through 5.41 Build 6
·
Added
setting the ST-402 motor phase in the Advanced Camera Config dialog.
Changes
made through 5.41 Build 4
·
Added
support for TDI (Time Delay Integration) with Interline CCD cameras like the
ST-2000, STL-11000 and STL-4020. Note
this requires updating your drivers and rebooting the camera.
Changes
made through 5.41 Build 3
·
Added
support for the remote tracking head with the ST-7 series of cameras.
Changes
made through 5.41
·
Implemented
a single level of Undo and Redo to commands in the Utility menu through the
Edit menu’s Undo command.
Changes
made through 5.40 Build 12
·
Added
internal test routines.
·
Added
support for the Impact Camera.
Changes
made through 5.40 Build 9
·
Added
support for the User EEPROM version for Centice.
·
Added
the sRGB and sRGB with Gamma color combines to the Single Shot Color Processing
dialog.
Changes
made through 5.40 Build 6
·
Fixed
a bug in the Display menu’s Slideshow command that stopped Slide Shows from
working.
Changes
made through 5.40 Build 5
·
Sending
an Alt-V to the Contrast Window when it is active will now activate the Main
Frame.
Changes
made through 5.40 Build 4
·
Fixed
a transmission timeout error with the CFW-6A.
·
We
now disable the AO-7 if the CFW-6A is selected since they are incompatible with
one another.
·
Added
some AO-L debug code for SBIG internal testing.
·
Fixed
an error in the AO Track Log file where the X DAC position was being reported
twice instead of DAC X and DAC Y.
·
Set
the max AO move while guiding to 2.5 pixel max when activating the relays.
·
At
end of each exposure only correct system clock for loss of time due to parallel
port camera driver if not running under NT/2000/XP.
Changes
made through 5.40
·
Fixed
a memory leak in the FITSIN.DLL that would cause memory to increase by 4 bytes
per pixel for each FITS file read.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Track menu’s Calibrate command that could overwrite the Resolution
settings for the Imaging and Tracking CCDs when the command completed.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Turbo Focus mode where the fan would always come on even if
disabled in the Camera Setup command.
·
Updated
the help files.
·
Removed
the “Disable AO Completely” option in the AO Setup command to simplify the
program.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Track and Accumulate command that was ignoring the setting of the
Reuse Dark Frames item in the Camera Setup command.
Changes
made through 5.39 Build 9
·
Released
OpsAG version 1.03 where fixed a bug that would case a CFW Error to be reported.
·
Added
keyboard shortcuts for filter positions 7 through 10 (Ctrl-7 through Ctrl-0)
for use with the CFW-10.
·
Checks
for the following drivers and warns if older ones found:
Universal Driver Library (SBIGUDRV.DLL) Version 4.44
ST-402 Firmware (SBIGFLDR.SYS) Version 2.09
ST-7/8/9 Firmware (SBIGULDR.SYS) Version 2.41
STL Firmware (SBIGLLDR.SYS) Version 2.10.
·
Fixed
a bug that was not forcing full frames in Track Calibrate if the Grab command
had last taken a Half or Quarter frame image.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Track Calibrate command that could cause the Autoguide command to
not make corrections on a single CCD camera (like the ST-402) if you had
previously calibrated the Tracking CCD of a Dual CCD camera.
·
The
Track Calibrate command now only overwrites a previous calibration result if
the new calibration is valid.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Track Calibrate command where if you were only calibrating one
axis (by setting the calibration time of the other axis to zero) you would be
warned that the uncalibrated axis failed.
Changes
made through 5.39 Build 6
·
Fixed
a bug in the Image While Exercising command in the AO menu that would cause
exposures to e 10X longer than asked for.
·
Added
SBIG internal test routines for the AO-L.
Changes
made through 5.39 Build 4
·
Fixed
a bug with the Autoguide command when used in conjunction with the OpsAG
Autonomous Guider and an E2P where OpsAG would always report Server Not Found.
·
Added
the DSS Marker for marking the position of the Slit on the DSS-7.
·
Fixed
a bug in reading FITS files where the Aperture Area was set to the Diameter.
·
Added
Testing Support for the AO-L
·
Modified
the Make Slide Show command to allow showing the Slideshow too.
·
Allow
showing the Filename in the Slideshow command.
Changes
made through 5.39
·
Added
the Show Horizontal Profile and Show Vertical profile commands to the Display
menu for making plots of Pixel Intensity vs Position when used in conjunction
with the Crosshair.
·
Renamed
and expanded the DSS Mode command to allow acquiring data as well.
Changes
made through 5.38B2
·
Included
version 1.01 of the OpsAg autonomous guider.
·
Fixed
the items in the pop-up menu that comes up when you right-click in a color
image with the Crosshairs closed.
Changes
made through 5.38
·
Added
the new OpsAG – Autonomous Guider utility program for background guiding. See the OpsAG Book in the Help File’s Table
of Contents.
·
Rewrote
the low-level Relay based Telescope Correction routine for Autoguiding with the
following improvements:
·
You
can now enable or disable each relay individually rather than in groups with
the Autoguide Parameters command. This
allows you to disable one Y relay for example to only correct for drift in
Declination which completely eliminates the Dec backlash problem.
·
It
no longer requires that the CCD be oriented with Declination vertically in
order to correct for loss of RA motion with varying declination. Now you tell it the Dec when you calibrate
and the Dec when you autoguide and it applies the proper factor to the Y
relays.
·
The
X Direction item in the Autoguide Parameters dialog now applies to the X Relays
not the X direction of the CCD.
·
Fixed
a bug with the CFW-10 code where if you shutdown when connected to a Serial
CFW-10 it would leave the COM port open.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Track Log Report where the Y Chatter was including data from the X
axis.
·
Now
the Relay Threshold setting in the AO Setup command is allowed to go to 100
which when set to that effectively disables any relay corrections by the AO.
·
When
making Slide Show scripts you can now add multiple images per pass.
·
Added
a Crop TDI command to the Utility menu which places a crop rectangle in the
image to eliminate the startup region at the top of the image.
·
For
some unknown reason CCDOps would sometimes stop updating the display of the CCD
temperature in the lower-right hand corner of the main window. If this happens running the Establish Com
Link command in the Camera menu will restart the background display.
Changes
made through 5.37B9
·
If
when establishing a link to a USB camera we find multiple cameras ask the user
which one he wants to use.
·
If
given the “/altinf” command line option uses alternate set of settings in the
Registry. This allows you to use 2
instances of CCDOps to talk to 2 cameras.
·
Modified
the Flat Field command to be color neutral for Single Shot color images. This happens when either image (the image or
the flat field) are detected as single shot color.
·
Fixed
a few bugs in the Track Log report generated by the Convert Track Log file
command.
Changes
made through 5.37B7
·
Improved
detection of Single Shot Color images by adding to the Headers history and
User_2 fields.
Changes
made through 5.37B6
·
Added
the TDI Position dialog for help in acquiring TDI images.
Changes
made through 5.37B5
·
Fixed
a bug reading some CCDOps images where if the Note was too long it wouldn’t
open the image. Now limits note to 70
characters.
·
Added
Time Delay Integration (TDI) command to Camera menu that allows you to take
unguided TDI images.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Flatten TDI utility that would cause the utility to have no effect
on images with backgrounds above 4096 counts.
Changes
made through 5.37
·
Added
the Remove Image Gradient command to the Utility menu that allows you to set
three points in the image and then flattens the image to those three points.
Changes
made through 5.36B25
·
Changes
to SBIG test routines only.
Changes
made through 5.36B24
·
Fixed
a bug that caused the Autoguide Parameters dialog to crash the program.
Changes
made through 5.36B22
·
Added
support for Single Shot Color images to the Smooth, Sharpen, Column/Row Repair
and Warm/Cool Pixel Removal functions in the Utility menu.
Changes
made through 5.36B21
·
Added
support for the CFW-10 in both I2C and Serial interfaces.
Changes
made through 5.36B18
·
Made
the RGB Combine dialog modeless so you could Zoom the image and use the
Crosshairs on the color image.
Changes
made through 5.36B17
·
Apply
the Autoguide Setup filters (Median, Lowpass) to Track Calibrate images as
well.
Changes
made through 5.36B15
·
Added
the Rotate 180° command to the Utility Menu for rotating images 180°.
·
Asks
that you have version 4.41 of the SBIGUDRV.DLL file for compatibility with the
STL-1301.
Changes
made through 5.36B14
·
Added
the ability through the Preferences command to set the default File type used
when saving new images. You can now select
to save new images by default as SBIG Compressed, SBIG Uncompressed or FITS
format. You can always override the
defaults on an image-by-image basis in the Save As dialog before the image is
saved.
·
Updated
the Help File.
Changes
made through 5.36B13
·
Added
internal SBIG test software.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Crop mode that would allow the left edge of the crop rectangle to
go to pixel 0 when moving the center of the box. This would give a column of 0 ADU pixels in
the first column of the cropped image.
·
Added
the DSS menu for the upcoming Deep Sky Spectrograph.
Changes
made through 5.36B10
·
Now
refers to the ST-402 by it’s proper name.
·
Added
icons to the Icon bar for Establishing a Link and Camera Shutdown.
·
Right-clicking
the mouse in Single Shot Color Raw or Color images when the Crosshairs are open
now allows you to select a “Set White Balance” option that sets the relative
rations of Red, Green and Blue based upon balancing the signals in the 11x11
pixel area under the Crosshair.
Changes
made through 5.36B8
·
Added
internal SBIG Test code.
·
Added
ability to activate/deactivate individual Relays in the Autoguide Parameters
dialog.
·
Added
ability to numerically set R/G/B factors in the Single Shot Color Processing
dialog.
·
Now
looks for version 4.39 of the SBIGUDRV.DLL and version 1.40 of the SBIGULDR.SYS
USB Camera firmware.
Changes
made through 5.36B4
·
Added
support for the high gain versions of the ST-2K.
Changes
made through 5.36B3
·
Disabled
the Back/Range items in the Save As TIFF dialog when 16 bit mode selected.
·
Whan
saving Raw images from Single Shot Color cameras as TIFF normalize the
background level in the Red, Green and Blue channels so it comes out grey
(equal amounts of R, G and B).
·
Fixed
a newly introduced bug in Track and Accumulate that would limit the maximum
snapshot exposure to 36 seconds.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Flat Field command that could cause data to overflow on Track and
Accumulate images where many images had been accumulated with bright
background.
·
Modified
the Track and Accumulate command to work with Single Shot Color cameras like
the ST‑2000XCM so the color information is not lost when Accumulating the
images.
·
Fixed
a bug in the Track and Accumulate mode that would cause the Guide Star preview
window to slide down the screen.
Changes
made through 5.36
·
Added
the ability to save Single Shot Color images as three-channel RGB TIFF files (8
or 16 bits).
·
Desensitized
the control in the Single Shot Color Processing command.
·
Fixed
the PgUp/PgDn and ArrowUp/ArrowDn keys in the Single Shot Color Processing
command so they move the controls the right direction.
Changes
made through 5.35B10
·
Fixed
a bug where when you would establish a link to an ST-F it would warn you about
out-of-date firmware.
·
Added
internal testing routines.
Changes
made through 5.35B8
·
Renamed
the Fix TDI utility command to Flatten TDI Background, sped it up considerably
for large images and added the ability to compensate for changes in sky
background as well.
·
Added
support for millisecond (0.001 second) exposures with the ST-2K and STL-11K
cameras.
·
In
Color Grab it now warns you if you use a name for the sequence that already
exists.
·
Added
support back in for the CFW-6A motorized filter wheel. This was broken in a previous version when we
switched over to using the SBIG Universal Driver for CFW support.
·
When
establishing a link to a camera warn if the SBIG Universal Driver or the Camera
Loaders are out of date.
·
Removed
the warning when starting CCDOps about "This is a newer version of CCDOps
and you should update your drivers".
Changes
made through 5.35B7
·
Fixed
a bug that could cause the program to bomb when opening very old images that
had errors in the image header.
·
Added
the Median Combine 3 Images command to the utility menu. This is handy for removing the effects of
Cosmic Rays from a three-image series of dark frames.
Changes
made through 5.35B3
·
Fixed
a bug in the crosshairs would close if they were open when you performed a
rotate.