Improvements to large field solving

This version fixes issues when solving large fields with massive amounts of stars.

Related Watney Desktop release: https://github.com/Jusas/WatneyAstrometry/releases/tag/desktop-v1.0.3

Changelog

Changed

• WatneyAstrometry.Core updated to v1.2.3 which introduces improved match filtering. This mainly affects images with large field radiuses and massive amounts of stars visible, improving the solve accuracy. Fields with tens of thousands of stars should now solve with better accuracy.

Downloads

CLI solver

watney-solve-cli-1.2.3*

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file watney-solve-config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory.

API solver

watney-solve-api-1.2.3*

The Watney API app. Includes the Astrometry.net compatibility API.

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory, and to configure the API to your liking.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Desktop core update

Changelog

Changed

• WatneyAstrometry.Core updated to v1.2.3 which introduces improved match filtering. This mainly affects images with large field radiuses and massive amounts of stars visible, improving the solve accuracy. Fields with tens of thousands of stars should now solve with better accuracy.

Downloads

The packages contain an executable, and some required libraries. NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
The application contains a user interface for downloading the quad database files, so this package is all you need.

Extract to any directory, and run the executable (watney-desktop).

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

This release lists "bleeding edge" builds for the Watney CLI solver app, which are automated builds generated whenever new code is pushed to the master branch.

The watney-solve-bleeding-latest* packages are always the latest build. Older builds may be kept around for some time.

Ignore the source code. It is not the latest.

Bugfix release for Watney API

Fixes a bug that only affected Watney API 1.2.0.

Changelog

Fixed

• In API: When the API config file config.yml does not have limitThreads set at all, the API app will no longer crash on startup. This crash happened if you were upgrading from v1.1.3 to v1.2.0 and you were still using your old configuration, the reason being that the default limitThreads value was incorrectly being set to 0 instead of -1.

Downloads

API solver

watney-solve-api-1.2.1*

The Watney API app. Includes the Astrometry.net compatibility API.

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory, and to configure the API to your liking.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Small feature and bugfix release

This version introduces solver thread limiting and fixes a logging issue.

Changelog

Added

• In the library: The solver now allows limiting the number of threads it uses. The new SolverGlobalConfiguration class allows setting a property MaxThreads that is respected by the Solver class. Example:

var globalSolverConfiguration = Solver.SolverGlobalConfiguration;
globalSolverConfiguration.MaxThreads = Environment.ProcessorCount - 1; // Default is Environment.ProcessorCount
Solver.SetGlobalConfiguration(globalSolverConfiguration); // After this the change takes effect.

• In CLI: optional parameter to allow limiting how many threads the solver can use. If the host is running other processes as well, it can be useful to limit the number of threads that is allowed to be used by the solver. By default when the parameter is not given then no limit is applied, i.e. the used thread count will default to the number of your CPU logical cores.

  example usage:

  ./watney-solve --limit-threads 15 ...

And to override the default value (0 which means do not limit), in the watney-solve-config.yml you can add:

  defaultLimitThreads: <number>

• In API: Configuration option to allow limiting how many threads the solver can use. In config.yml:

  limitThreads: -1

By default the value is set to -1 which does not apply any limit, i.e. the used thread count will default to the number of your CPU logical cores.. If the host is running other processes as well, it can be useful to limit the number of threads that is allowed to be used by the solver.

Fixed

• In CLI: When logging to file with the --log-file parameter the file I/O was excessive, slowing down solves significantly since the verbose logging produces so much log. This has been fixed by significantly reducing the file writes and instead the logs are mostly kept in memory until they get flushed to disk.

Downloads

CLI solver

watney-solve-cli-1.2.0*

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file watney-solve-config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory.

API solver

watney-solve-api-1.2.0*

The Watney API app. Includes the Astrometry.net compatibility API.

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory, and to configure the API to your liking.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Desktop small feature update

Changelog

Added

• A setting to allow limiting how many threads the solver can use.
  It defaults to CPU logical core count - 1.

Downloads

The packages contain an executable, and some required libraries. NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
The application contains a user interface for downloading the quad database files, so this package is all you need.

Extract to any directory, and run the executable (watney-desktop).

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Desktop bugfix update

This is a small update that fixes some known issues present in v1.0.0.

Changelog

Fixed

• Dialogs now open properly at the center of their owner windows.
• The version string is now properly displayed in the main window title
  in Linux.
• Latest used paths in file open dialogs are persisted and saved to a
  config file.

Downloads

The packages contain an executable, and some required libraries. NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
The application contains a user interface for downloading the quad database files, so this package is all you need.

Extract to any directory, and run the executable (watney-desktop).

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

A desktop tool for testing and demoing

The Watney Solver Desktop is a multi-platform GUI application that demonstrates how Watney works, and can be used for testing and as an example of a custom application implementation.

Changelog

First release

The very first release of the desktop app. Expect some bugs to crawl out! The app has been built for the same platforms as the CLI:

• Windows: x64
• Linux: x64, arm64, arm32
• OSX: x64

Known issues:

• The main window title bar does not show the version number correctly on Linux
• Drag & Drop of images does not work on Linux (issue with the Avalonia UI library)
• Last location when browsing images/files is not saved, and always defaults to the user's home directory

Downloads

The packages contain an executable, and some required libraries. NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
The application contains a user interface for downloading the quad database files, so this package is all you need.

Extract to any directory, and run the executable (watney-desktop).

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Bugfix release, v1.1.3

A small but important bugfix release.

Changelog

Fixed

• Fixed the issue of truncating the exponent when writing long decimal
  numbers with scientific notation to the solve result WCS FITS file headers.
  This affects you if you were reading coordinates and the CD matrix from the
  outputted solve result WCS file.
  Watney CLI JSON and TSV output was unaffected by this bug.

Downloads

CLI solver

watney-solve-cli-1.1.3*

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file watney-solve-config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory.

API solver

watney-solve-api-1.1.3*

The Watney API app. Includes the Astrometry.net compatibility API.

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory, and to configure the API to your liking.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Bugfix release, v1.1.2

This release fixes the errors occuring with ARM processors in 32bit operating systems.
Notable affected systems were:

• Raspberry Pi ARMv7 systems
• Raspberry Pi 4 running in 32bit OS (Linux Astroberry, Raspberry Pi OS non-64bit)

Changelog

Fixed

• Fixed exceptions with ARM processors when running in 32bit operating systems
  ("A datatype misalignment was detected in a load or store instruction")
  which was unexpectedly caused by the previous quad database format changes.

Added

• More XML comments (only relevant for the NuGet package consumers).

Downloads

CLI solver

watney-solve-cli-1.1.2*

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file watney-solve-config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory.

API solver

watney-solve-api-1.1.2*

The Watney API app. Includes the Astrometry.net compatibility API.

The packages contain a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 6 runtime installation is not required.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release.

Extract to any directory, same goes to the quad database. Edit the configuration file config.yml to set the path to your quad database directory, and to configure the API to your liking.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.