Voyager Changelog

What's new in Voyager 4.5.7

May 28, 2010

Fixed problems with connecting to Orion and SkyWatcher telescope controllers. Fixed problem connecting to Takahashi telescope controllers with USB-to-serial adapters on Mac OS X. Fixed disabled GoTo, Align, and directional motion buttons for SkyTracker controllers in the Telescope Control panel.
Restored code which displays the current position angle and separation of visual binary stars in the "Physical" tab of the Info Panel.
The compass and altimeter displayed in the lower right corner of sky chart windows now update correctly if the chart is dragged while scroll bars are hidden.
A crash that occurred while displaying planet trails has been fixed.
If the "Correct for Atmospheric Refraction" option is turned on in the "Precision" dialog box, the refracted horizon line now appears at the same location as the standard horizon line.
Descriptions for all Constellations, all Messier objects, and a few others, have been updated; Messier 40 and Caldwell 100 have been added to the database. A few common names for deep sky objects have been added and/or corrected; duplicate entries for NGC 7582 have been removed.
The Mac version is now built with Xcode 3.2.2. Dropped support for Mac OS X 10.3.9; the required minimum Mac OS X version is now 10.4. The Windows installer is now built with InstallShield Express 2009.

New in Voyager 4.5.5 (Sep 5, 2009)

Added support for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Windows 7 in the registration code.
Added remote telescope control via TCP/IP, and ability to accept remote control connections via TCP/IP. Voyager can now act as a WiFi-to-serial relay, allowing telescope control from our iPhone application, SkyVoyager. It can also use our forthcoming SkyFi wireless-to-serial relay to control a telescope wirelessly.
The Align command is now enabled for Celestron telescopes running NexStar protocol version 4.1 and higher. The "Send Time" and "Send Location" commands are enabled for Celestron telescopes running protocol version 2.3 and higher.
Fixed a problem which resulted in the chart being re-centered on a random location while double-clicking the sky with the default mouse action set to zoom the sky chart.
When the "Correct for Atmospheric Refraction" option is turned on, in the "Precision" dialog box, the altitudes for alll objects reported in the "Object Info" window is now corrected for refraction. In addition, if the chart is using Horizon (Alt-Azimuth) coordinates, objects are now drawn at their apparent (refracted) positions, rather than their true (geometric) positions.
Fixed a bug which sometimes prevented an object's description from appearing in the Object Info panel. Added and/or updated descriptions for 36 more stars, and corrected numerous spelling/grammar errors in all descriptions. This brings the total number of star descriptions to 508, and the number of deep sky object descriptions to 514. Every Caldwell object now has a description.
Much better map of Mercury, created by Steve Albers, using MESSENGER data to fill in most parts of the planet not observed by Mariner 10. This new Mercury map has twice the resolution of the previous version.
A few corrections to the basic stellar and deep sky object data: Marsic is Kappa Herculis, not HR 7008; Thor's Helmet is NGC 2359, not NGC 6451; NGC 6451 is the Tom Thumb Cluster.
Fixed crash in the Windows version when exporting an ephemeris as a text file.
Proper motion values for stars are now shown correctly in the Info Panel when the "Proper Motion" correction option is checked in the Set Precision... dialog box. Binary star system component separations and position angles are now given for the current date in the Physical properties tab of the Info Panel.
The Mac version is now built using XCode 3.1.3.

New in Voyager 4.5.4 (Mar 22, 2009)

Added support for Celestron CPC series telescopes and SkyWatcher SynScan telescope controllers. Coordinates from these telescopes are now sent and recieved for precession epoch j2000 instead of the current epoch, resulting in higher pointing accuracy than previous versions.
Slew rate slider in the Telescope control panel is now working correctly for Meade telescopes.
Fixed communication problems with AstroPhysics GTO controllers. For Takahashi mounts, added dialog to confirm whether or not the telescope is the west side of the mount at startup.
After disconnecting the telescope, Voyager no longer removes the lock and sets the sun as the locked object, unless the chart was previously locked on the telescope.
The maximum number of asteroids, comets, and spacecraft that can be installed at once has been increased from 16,384 to 32,765. in the Mac OS X version, the list boxes in the display > Asteroids and Comets dialog and Tools > Select Asteroids and Comets dialog now correctly display the names of all asteroids (up to 32,765) which are currently installed. On Windows, only names of the first 4096 installed asteroids/comets/spacecraft are displayed; this is a limitation in our third-party Windows UI toolkit, which we are desperately trying to work around.
Ability to add images to the User Pictures has been restored, in both the Mac and Windows versions. Images must be in JPEG format (not PICT), and have the extension .jpg in their filename; otherwise, this feature now works as described in the user manual. An updated ReadMe file and a few new images have been added to the User Pictures folder.
The "next image" and "previous image" arrow buttons in the image window now properly slideshow through the correct set of images: the images of the selected object if the image window is showing an image that was clicked in the Info Panel, and the images in the currently-selected image gallery group if the image was clicked in the Image Gallery window.
Registration is now required in order to display full-sized images in the Image Gallery and in the Info Panel's "Images" tab.
Reopening settings files containing an Observing List no longer causes the program to crash.
When you right-click on a planet, the contextual menu that appears now contains items that let you show the planet's major moons, minor moons, moon names, moon orbits, and moon shadows.
When a moon's shadow passes across a planet, or vice-versa, that shadow is now always drawn, regardless of whether or not the planet's (or moon's) shadow cone is turned on. Eclipses and transits do happen, whether we like them or not! The "show shadow cone" option now shows the planet or moon's umbral shadow cone, which is a mathematical construct that is not actually visible.
A bug with drawing Sun and Moon glow circles which caused a crash under certain circumstances has been fixed.
In the preferences dialog, Chart tab, the sky chart zoom factor can now be set from 1.0 to 3.0 as advertised, without an error message.
When selecting the Julian calendar system in the "Set Time" dialog, Voyager now properly shows that selection after hittining the OK button and reopening the dialog.
The Full Screen button in the Display Panel now works correctly in the Mac version. Full screen display is not yet implemented in the Windows version.
Fixed possible crash in Mac OS X version registration code which determines system serial number.
Window menu items which select Panel windows (and their keyboard command equivalents) now bring those windows to the front of all other panel windows, in addition to just making the panel window visible.

New in Voyager 4.5.3 (Jan 3, 2009)

New in Voyager 4.5.2 (Nov 4, 2008)

Fixed problem with finding times of lunar eclipses in the Conjunction Search dialog box.
The Windows version can now correctly export TIFF and JPEG files.
When saving a settings file with the Windows Shell "hide file extentions for known file types" option turned on, the horizon image file path is now saved correctly.
The Deep Sky magnitude up/down buttons in the Display Panel are now working correctly.
The "Go-To" and "Align" telescope commands in the right-click menu should now function correctly. "Flip Horizontal" and "Flip Vertical" commands have been added to this menu.
In the Planet Report, precession is now used properly when listing the equatorial positions of the planets.
Custom labels for hidden solar system objects are now drawn in the correct position.
Preferences for Angle and Time formats are now used more consistently throughout the program.
Fixed problems with Takahashi telescope control: arrow buttons and stop buttons in Telescope Panel should now function properly; Send Location and Send Time Telescope menu items are now enabled. Latitude and Sidereal Time are sent to the Temma controller when communication is established.
The "demo" telescope interface is now fully functional. Registration is now required in order to connect to a real telescope.
When downloading import files, Voyager now properly handles HTTP redirect responses, and lets you continue downloading files if a particular file fails to download.
The on-line registration code has a longer timeout, to avoid "unable to connect to on-line registration" errors, and now defaults to retrying rather than displaying the register-by-phone dialog.
In the Windows version, error message dialog boxes can no longer inadvertently be moved behind the application's main frame window.
Graphic artifacts when drawing the Info Panel's tab control in the Mac version have been removed. In both the Mac and Windows versions, the Description tab now always appears when selecting an object that has a description.
The Jupiter map has been modified so that the Great Red Spot appears near its current (2008) longitude of 130 degrees, producing more accurate GRS transit times.
With the "Auto" time button turned on in the Time Panel, simulated sky chart times now stay in sync with the computer's system clock.
When drawing the Earth without a textured surface image, the Earth's night side shading is now drawn properly when the Earth's "Show Phase" option is turned on.
A potential crash in both the Mac and Windows versions when drawing horizon, planet disk, or constellation figure polygons has been fixed.
A problem with setting the screen gamma table to uninitialized values on program exit has been fixed.
Data for the as-yet-unnamed irregular outer moons of Jupiter and Saturn has been added to the program, bringing the total solar system moon count to 180. Incorrect values for moon rotation periods have been fixed. Improvements to orbit drawing code have been made.
A few new-and-improved settings files have been added. Performance problems in the Windows version have been addressed.

New in Voyager 4.5.1 (Oct 10, 2008)

Created a new option in the Preferences dialog, under the File tab, to pre-load data files at program startup. This will be OFF by default, allowing faster startup times and lower memory usage, but somewhat slower performance later. Turn this ON to pre-load all data files at startup, which will result in longer startup times and higher memory usage, but faster performance on machines with lots of RAM.
New bright star data file, based on version 5 of the NASA SKY2000 Master Star Catalog, with RECONS and SIMBAD data added for the 100 nearest star systems. Bayer latin letter star identifiers and Flamsteed numbers missing from SKY2000 (e.g. b And, 82 Eri) have been added from the Hipparcos catalog. Missing and/or incorrect variable star and multiple star identifiers in SKY2000 v5 have been fixed, using data from the latest GCVS and WDS catalogs. A few incorrect proper names (e.g. Shaula, Lesath) have been fixed, and many additional proper names have been added from research on Jim Kaler's STARS, Wikipedia, and other sources.
Voyager now includes vastly improved "plain-English" descriptions of nearly 500 star systems, developed in conjunction with professor Jim Kaler at the University of Illinois. Click on nearly any bright star, and select the "Description" tab in the Info Panel for a few paragraphs on that star's cultural and historical significance, astrophysical properties, evolution, and planetary system (if known). The deep sky object descriptions have also been "beefed up" for several constellations, including Virgo and (our favorite) Carina.
The new RECONS data on the 100 nearest star systems is also included in a Voyager import file (Nearby Stars.txt) in the "Import Files" folder. This information is now included in Voyager's basic stellar database.
This version includes a new deep sky object data file. The new file includes the latest open cluster data from the Wilton Dias 2008 catalog, and adds 132 clusters (e.g. Collinder 399 and M 73) from his 2002 catalog which were removed from the latest catalog. Galaxy data has been updated from the 2008 version of the Principal Galaxy Catalog, with missing information filled in from the earlier 2002 PGC. Distances for PGC galaxies in the Local Group (e.g. the LMC, SMC, M 31, M 32, M 110) have been corrected using values obtained from other sources. All objects in the NGC and IC catalogs have been revised with data from Wolfgang Steinicke's 2008 Revised NGC & IC lists.
Voyager should be better at identifying deep sky object images embedded in sky chart windows when the mouse is moved over them (Auto Identify) or clicked on them, even which deep sky object outlines/symbols are turned off.
Improved telescope communication:
Added support for the Orion Sirius and Orion Atlas Go-To mounts, and the Orion Intelliscope encoder mounts. Added support for iOptron SmartStar mounts.
The Windows version should now find be able to find COM ports numbered higher than COM9, enabling telescope communication with a StarryNight BlueStar bluetooth adapter. Telescope commands will now be retried if the first attempt fails, resulting in more robust communication and fewer "Can't communicate with the telescope" errors.
Enabled the "Double-click to slew option" for ServoCAT Argo Navis telescopes. When connecting to BBox encoder-like systems, the encoder count is now sent to all models except the Orion SkyWizard.
If red screen mode is turned on, the screen is restored to normal display when the program exits.
Added ability to read Voyager II settings files. Not all Voyager II settings can be interpreted correctly, particularly spacecraft orbits, variable stars, and some issues related to planet scaling. However, most settings should be imported correctly.
Fixed crash in importing Voyager III settings files. Fixed problems with importing object references from Voyager 4.0 settings files. Fixed problems with interpreting Flamsteed numbers for stars in constellations with two words in their names (e.g. "46 Leonis Minoris").
The "Open Settings" dialog box in the File menu now defaults to the "Settings Files" directory. The "Save Last Settings" option in the "File" tab of the "Preferences" dialog now correctly saves the last program settings as the Startup file so they will be restored the next time the program starts up.
The "Overwrite Startup File"? warning message no longer appears if no Startup file is actually present.
Custom labels which are attached to moving objects (such as the Sun, Moon, and Planets) should now stay attached to those objects when they move.
In the Mac version, Panel window locations outside the main monitor can now be saved in settings files (including the Startup file); this allows panel windows to be positioned on secondary monitors.
In the Windows version, the Info Panel now properly resizes when minimized. Problems with the Info Panel appearing with its title bar outside the application's main frame window (and hence immovable) have been fixed. Flickering and spurious bold re-drawing of description text in the Info Panel in the Windows version has also been eliminated. Problems with the description text scroll bar in the Info Panel resetting to the top have been fixed.
In the Windows version, the Display Panel is no longer moved to positions outside the application's main frame window when it is maximized/minimized running on a second monitor.
Fixed crash in Windows version caused by deleting items from the Observing List panel.
Settings files containing descriptions will show Banner window when opened. Settings files containing observing lists will display Observing Panel when opened.
Fixed problems with displaying the Clock hand positions not matching numerical time displays when switching between Local Time and Universal Time in the Time Panel's time menu.
Increased the number of user-defined locations from 32 to 1024.
New Mac2Win DLL resolves problems with minimize/close buttons appearing incorrectly in resizable panel windows (Info Panel, Planet Panel) in the Windows version.
Mouse wheel zooming support: you can now zoom in and out on the centered part of the sky chart window by using the mouse wheel (if you have one) - just like with Google Maps, or some other astronomy programs.
Fixed problems (particularly in non-Sterographic projections) where sun glow was not being drawn to the limb of the Sun, leaving a black "ring" around the Sun's disk. Also fixed problems related to drawing the limb of very enlarged planets/moons whose centers are offscreen.
The IAU standard expression for local sidereal time as a function of universal time has been modified to cap quatratic and cubic terms with respect to time at +/- 10,000 years from the present epoch (J2000). The correct expression for LST as a function of UT at times farther out than this is really a matter of speculative guesswork, but this modification at least prevents confusing situations like the Sun appearing below the horizon at 10 AM in the year 76,000 A.D.
Daylight Savings Time in Australia for 2008 and after now ends the last Sunday in March, instead of the first Sunday in April.
Experimental option for showing the Earth as viewed from 200 miles up in the main sky chart window while dragging your location on the Earth Map in the Location Panel. This is to provide a sensation of motion and make more clear what is happening in the sky when you change your location on Earth.
When using a path to show an object's apparent motion across the sky, and simultaneously moving around the solar system, Voyager now corrects the path for your new position, instead of leaving an abrupt discontinuity in the path.