Release Notes

[Fix] = Bug fix, [Chg] = Feature change or interface revision, [New] = New feature

V1.3.2 (14 November 2003)

[Fix] Changed the limit of -12...12 on GMT Offset to -24...24 to handle daylight saving time in New Zealand.

V1.3.1 (1 Nov 2003)

[Chg] Added Avoid test for valid controller option in Preferences->Telescope/GPS. This will stop the initial test for the controller type that usually happens when you connect. i.e. the scope will not be polled to see if it is correct. This is useful if you have a scope controller that "emulates" one of the existing types, but does not return the required information when polled. Typically this will be off (default).
[Chg] Added Delay between commands setting to Preferences->Telescope/GPS. This setting will force delays between commands sent to the telescope. Warning: using this with long delays might cause sporadic glitches, slew timeouts, etc. Typically this will be off (default).
[Chg] If you open the Plan Creation Wizard without an open plan document, it now assumes the default site in Resources and allows you to display constellations visible at that site. It also displays the name of the site in use.
[Chg/Fix] If Visibility update is set to manual (in Preferences->General) and a plan document is opened, the visibility of all objects will be computed once initially. Previously, the first object only would have this computation done, causing confusion.
[Chg/Fix] Column resizing should now work a bit more intuitively on certain multi-column lists (e.g. Catalog window).
[Chg] If the mouse cursor is pointing to an object in the FOV, the RA/Dec/Constellation text at the lower left turns blue and shows the catalogue value of RA/Dec for that object. Between objects the RA/Dec is grey and is computed from position.
[Chg] Option-clicking (Alt-clicking in Windows) in the FOV will copy the text below the FOV chart onto the clipboard.
[Chg] Changed the minimum magnification for telescope resources to use a maximum eye pupil size of 7.5mm rather than 6mm. This is more realistic and also corresponds to the value used in the ODM calculations. This is for "cosmetic" reasons and does not affect any calculations apart from the displayed minimum magnification values in the Resources window.
[Chg] When you open a text file (Plan text file, Argo Navis user catalog or Autostar tour) and a new plan file is created, an automatic save will be done on that plan file rather than waiting until it is closed and the user prompted. This will avoid some confusion and non-standard behaviour.
[Chg] Beta versions now display the expiry date in the frame window title (Windows) and the splash/about window (Mac and Windows).
[Chg] Beta versions can now be used after the expiration date, but a warning message will appear each time you run.
[Chg] If AstroPlanner thinks you're about to draw too many stars in the FOV, it will warn you and let you choose whether or not to continue. Preferences->FOV has checkbox to disable the above test if it annoys you.
[Chg] If catalogue entries do not have an associated magnitude, the magnitude is now assumed to be non-existent, rather than 0.0. This only has an effect with possible forthcoming catalogues (e.g. radio sources, pulsars). All the current catalogues have associated magnitude values.
[Chg] Added some extra object types for future catalogues.

[Fix] The GPS feature now checks correctly for valid $GPRMC sentences. It will also now retrieve latitude and longitude from valid $GPGGA and $GPGLL sentences if they are present.
[Fix] Comets/Minor Planets now work with the "Refresh from Catalogues" feature if their ID is non-unique.
[Fix] Minor cosmetic tweaks for Mac OS X 10.3 compatibility.

[Fix] The Delete Conditionally command now works for solar system objects if the conditional part depends on RA, Dec or Magnitude.
[Fix] Fixed a problem that was causing long delays when the Resources window was opened.

[Fix] Fixed a problem that was preventing the time offset parameter being used in multi-column sorts when the affected time-related column was not the first (e.g. sorting by Visible and then by Set with offset 18:00)
[Fix] Fixed a problem that was causing a multi-column sort to sort incorrectly if the first column value was blank.
[Fix] Minimum Slew Sort highlighted/unhilighted options disabled if too few suitable objects are available (this avoids a crash problem).

[Fix] Fixed a problem that could cause an exception if you quit from the application without disconnecting the telescope first (possibly a Windows-only problem).
[Fix] Fixed a problem where stars in the FOV with low RA values were not being plotted if the RA=0 point was in the FOV. Especially noticable with large FOV diameters.
[Fix] Fixed an associated problem where certain constellation figure lines were not being drawn in the FOV.
[Fix] No longer possible to define a custom FOV > 60° (which creates a weird looking result).
[Fix] Sorting the Catalogue list in the Check for Updates window on Date or Size now does the expected thing.
[Fix] Fixed problem in Select From Catalogue by Visibility, where circumpolar objects were being rejected.

[Fix] Fixed an FOV printing problem, apparent if the FOV was horizontally or vertically flipped.
[Fix] Fixed problem with moon transit time.
[Fix] Bogus stars with RA=0, Dec=0 no longer displayed in FOV.
[Fix] Corrected search mechanism when looking for IDs like "BD+23 01234".

[Fix] Tweaks so that quasars, pulsars, etc. appear in the FOV.
[Fix] Galaxies without defined position angles are now handled better.
[Fix] Rotation of galaxies in the FOV is now handled better.
[Fix] The flickering problem caused by the Rise-Transit-Set graphic has now been largely eliminated.
[Fix] Some tightening of code in some areas to prevent crashing if catalogue files are bad.

[Fix] Fixed problem with Check for Updates not connecting to retrieve catalogues (for paid-up users)
[Fix] Check for Updates now does up to ten retries if it can't get the status information.

[Fix] Fixed a crashing problem when using the Preferences->Catalogues->Show Catalogue ID Fields and Object Types, if too many catalogues with too many ID fields were in use.

[Fix] Fixed a problem when using the visibility option in the Select from catalogue... dialog.
[Fix] The Ignore checkboxes for catalogues in Preferences->Catalogues are now honoured in the Select from Catalogue... operation and the Plan Creation Wizard feature.

[Fix] Fix for DSS feature on non-US systems. If the numbering system on your computer doesn't use a period as a decimal point then the DSS source site gets confused.
[Fix] Show Constellation in FOV now works for constellations that cross the 0h RA boundary.
[Fix] Missing or large magnitude values are now omitted from Argo Navis user catalogues and/or downloads (rather than being given as "999.0" which causes the Argo Navis unit to choke).

V1.3 (30 Aug 2003)

[New] File->Save All. Effectively does a File->Save on all open documents.
[New] Open Recent submenu of File menu lists the last 10 documents you opened. Selecting one will open it, or if it's already open, bring it to the front.
[New] Ratings system now user-definable (Preferences->Observations). You can assign non-numeric terms to the values (e.g. "Good" = 5, "Fair" = 4, etc.). You can also assign values of your choice, and as many ratings as you like. You can also assign the value of -1 to a rating and it will be ignored when calculating average ratings (e.g. "Not Found" = -1). Also, you can either show the numerical average rating, or the nearest term that describes the average (e.g. an average of 4.3 in the example above would display "Fair").
[New] Small graphic on Observing tab shows phase of the moon.
[New] Alt/Az FOV field rotation. If you set the Alt/Az rotation checkbox on the Field of View tab, the chart will rotate to the orientation that the field would have if an alt-azimuth mounted telescope was in use.
[New] Display of Milky Way outline on Sky chart (optional).
[New] Added support for Digital Setting Circle type telescopes (i.e. push-to-point telescopes with shaft encoders). The Slew button is replaced by a graphic that shows you how far you are from pointing at the selected object. You can push the scope around until both RA and Dec graphics show zero. At that stage you should be pointing at the desired object.
[New] Support for Meade Magellan scope controller (Magellan II in particular. I don't know about Magellan I).
[New] Support for ServoCAT Go-to system.
[New] Support for Sky Commander digital setting circles.
[New] Preferences->General->Rise/Transit/Set now has an option to display a graphic (for a given day of the week at a given time). The graphic shows for the next year (52 weeks) (a) daylight, levels of twilight, and dark status for that day/time each week, (b) the object altitude, (c) the moon altitude (if visible) and (d) the amount of moon illumination (dimmer moon implies closer to new moon). This allows you to plan the best times of the year to view particular objects.
[New] If Jupiter is an observation list object, then a graphic showing the position of the four major satellites (to scale) is shown.
[New] Support for external planetarium applications. Initially, Cartes du Ciel (Windows) and MPj Equinox (Mac) are partially supported. See Preferences->External.
[New] Object->Show Constellation in Field of View... allows you to select a constellation from a list. That constellation will then be centred in the FOV and the FOV resized to show all of the constellation (unless it encompasses more than 60°, in which case the central 60° will be shown).
[New] Added Argo Navis digital setting circle support. (i.e. AstroPlanner can display the current RA/Dec pointing coordinates).
[New] File->Save As Argo Navis User Catalog... menu command saves the plan contents as a text file suitable for upload to an Argo Navis controller via the vendor-supplied software.
[New] Telescope->Start Spiral Scan... and Telescope->Continue Spiral Scan... perform a "spiral scan" around the current telescope pointing RA/Dec. You can specify the FOV size. AstroPlanner will then make small slews around the point of origin, moving half of the FOV diameter each time. This is useful to find that pesky star or DSO if you have a small FOV eyepiece or an attached webcam or CCD imager. It will also show the track of the spiral scan path in the FOV as numbered points joined by dotted lines. Note: this is not like the Autostar "spiral scan" feature - you can't sync on the object when you find it. Also, it will not work close to the poles (until I figure out the mathematics that is).
[New] Telescope->Download Plan to Argo Navis... is a new feature that will communicate with the Argo Navis and allows direct downloading of the current plan to the Argo Navis unit. Also displays various Argo Navis status items (temperature, date/time, etc.), and allows any currently installed objects to be purged. Useful, especially to Mac users who currently have no "official" way to communicate.
[New] Ability to read Argo Navis User Catalog text files and create a new plan document from them (use File->Open...).
[New] Preferences->Observing/Planning Lists->Re-sort dynamic columns every 30 sec. If this is set, and the observing list is sorted by a dynamically changing column (altitude, azimuth, visibility, hour angle or air mass) then that column will be re-sorted every 30 seconds.
[New] File->Plan Creation Wizard... This is a way of creating an "instant" plan, tailored to your observing skills and desired objects. You choose one or more object types, one or more constellations, your skill level (from 1 (easy) to 5 (hard)), and how many objects (maximum) you want in the plan. AstroPlanner will then scour the various catalogues and attempt to find suitable objects for you to observe and create a new plan for you (or add the objects to your current plan). Note: Only paid-up users can go above level 2 or select alternative data sets.
[New] Preferences->General->Open documents to fill screen option does just that: when you open a new or existing document, it is resized to fill the screen.
[New] GPS support. If you have a GPS unit connected to a serial port (not a "GPS" scope) and talking NMEA standard sentences, then you can use that information to set your Site latitude/longitude/GMT Offset. Preferences->Telescope/GPS (note new name) specifies the GPS serial port. In Edit->Resources...->Sites there is now a Get from GPS... button. When clicked a dialog opens and data is acquired from the GPS unit.

[Chg] Catalogue list in Preferences->Catalogues now has a P(referred) and I(gnore) checkbox for each catalogue (all initially unchecked). Catalogue searches (Lookup ID) will search "preferred" catalogues first. When the Lookup dialog (with the list of catalogues) is displayed, any catalogues marked "ignore" will be unchecked by default (although they can be manually checked). This can be used to avoid routinely those gigantic catalogues when searching (e.g. Tycho, Star2000, etc.).
[Chg] Preferences->Sky/FOV->Other Options->FOV tab shows selected object. When set, this option centres the FOV on the currently selected object in the Observing list whenever the Field of View tab is selected. A shortcut to avoid clicking the Show Field of View button.
[Chg] Preferences->Sky/FOV->Other Options->Drag "sky" rather than FOV. When set, if you drag the cursor in the FOV it acts as if you are dragging the background sky rather than the default which acts as if you're dragging the FOV around.
[Chg] FOV now shown as dotted circle on Sky chart.
[Chg] Information below Field of View chart shows constellation name (at the cursor RA/Dec).
[Chg] Other than being able to change the Epoch of the currently selected object using Object->Change Epoch..., you can now change the epoch of all objects in the list, or all manually-entered objects (to avoid messing with those added from the catalogues).
[Chg] Items in Autostar descriptions can now be reordered by dragging rowns in a checkbox list.
[Chg] Air Mass now displayed with 4 dec. places
[Chg] Air Mass computation now uses more accurate method (Bemporad's polynomial approximation). Note that since Air Mass is dependent on altitude (object elevation angle), the numbers are only as accurate as your date/time/lat/long/GMT offset settings...
[Chg] Fix Date dialog now has GMT/UT checkbox that allows entry of Date/Time as GMT/UT values.
[Chg] Fix Date now has a pushbutton to bring up the dialog independently of the checkbox.
[Chg] The Object->Lookup Synonyms... menu command now uses RA/Dec precision defined in Preferences->General. Previously it was fixed at 2" of RA/Dec which is too "tight" for a lot of applications.
[Chg] Small change to allow fast search of indexed Name fields in catalogues. Currently only the WDS catalogue (changed 4/28/2003) supports this. This means if you search on, say, STF248, HO194, etc. you will find them a lot quicker.
[Chg] Custom reticles can now be offset from the centre of the field (useful for creating reticles for, say, dual-CCD cameras with an offset guiding sensor).
[Chg] If you define such an offset sensor reticle, you can now optionally show it's track as it is rotated about the centre of the FOV.
[Chg] A "Special" menu allows addition of "pre-packaged" reticles, for 35mm, SBIG cameras, etc.
[Chg] A global prefix and suffix field has been added to the multiple lookup dialog (what you get if you click Lookup ID... with a blank ID field). This is convenient if you're trying to add a whole bunch of similar objects. e.g. 123,345,567 with a prefix of "NGC" would lookup NGC123, NGC345 and NGC567. Similarly R,S,gam,12 with suffix "CMa" would lookup R CMa, S CMa, gam CMa and 12 CMa.
[Chg] Can now display all user objects from the planning/observing list in the FOV (where applicable). Such objects will be displayed in a colour selectable in Preferences->Sky/FOV.
[Chg] Added a new Observations tab to the Preferences window. Moved some items from General into that tab. Rearranged the General tab.
[Chg] When saving Text Files, the order saved is the same as the list (Planning or Observation) currently displayed.
[Chg] When you attempt to add objects with duplicate IDs, you now get the choice of doing so, rather than ignoring the duplicates.
[Chg] Preferences->Sky/FOV->Other Options->FOV tab shows selected object. When set, this option centres the FOV on the currently selected object in the Observing or Planning list whenever the Field of View tab is selected. A shortcut to avoid clicking the Show Field of View button.
[Chg] If you have the Preferences->General->Keep lists synchronised option switched on then the selected item on the Observing/Planning lists will also be synchronised. (i.e. if you slect M39 in one list, the other list will also select M39).
[Chg] Global observation window shows total observations in window caption.
[Chg] The Select From Catalogue and Highlight features now support Magnitude Difference (for Double and Variable stars).
[Chg] The Select From Catalogue and Highlight features now support Magnitude 2 (for Double and Variable stars).
[Chg] Clicking on the Sky chart switches to the clicked coordinates in the Field of View (unless alignment stars are being displayed, in which case it's business as usual).
[Chg] RA/Dec cursor coordinates are displayed underneath the sky chart.
[Chg] Some internal changes to be able to handle the upcoming Hubble GSC Catalogue (these changes will allow me to shave over 260MB off the size without losing any data. However, it does mean the GSC Catalogue will not work with earlier versions of the application.
[Chg] Global Observation Export format tweaked slightly (by request). Note that the export format is not backwards compatible to earlier versions of AstroPlanner.
[Chg] When the "Ask User" option is used, creating new observations remembers the previous Date/Time.
[Chg] A few more minor tweaks to support the 550MB, 25+ million star Hubble GSC catalogue. Note: This catalogue will not be available on-line. It is included on the CD-ROM.
[Chg] Preferences->Sky/FOV tab now split into two separate tabs for Sky and FOV, and rearranged a bit.
[Chg] Added ST-7 and ST-8 to predefined reticle list.
[Chg] You can now pick from six different methods of displaying stars in the FOV. See Preferences->FOV for the settings. You can also separately choose the style for printing.
[Chg] Resources->Visual Aids now has a list of assorted Barlows and focal reducers to choose from.
[Chg] Using the FOV Constellation boundary option also shows constellation "stick figures" in the field of view chart.
[Chg] Planetary magnitudes are now computed with greater accuracy and depend on position.
[Chg] Planetary diameters are now displayed in the Size column and depend on position.
[Chg] Planets are now shown at their apparent size (where possible) in the FOV.
[Chg] Object->Refresh Objects from Catalogues... now has an option to refresh minor planet and comet elements. Note that this only works for objects added with this release or a later one. Older objects will not be updated.
[Chg] Added a checkbox in Telescope Communication... to send an optional carriage return after each command (the U2K telescope requires it, for example).
[Chg] Western horizon checkbox in the Drift Alignment helper dialog uses stars on the western horizon rather than the eastern horizon (for those who are eastern-horizon-challenged).
[Chg] Object, Label and USNO star magnitude limits in the FOV are now selected via a slider.
[Chg] Field of View tab items re-arranged and grouped. Cosmetic differences only.
[Chg] Constellation "stick figures" drawn with dashed lines in FOV.
[Chg] FOV display font and size can now be selected by the user (Preferences->FOV)
[Chg] Solar system object "motion tracks" now show object with true size. Pointing at the object with the cursor now reveals more information.
[Chg] HP Slewing dialog now has a column showing altitude of stars (so that you can avoid those close to the horizon).
[Chg] (Meade-compatible scopes only) If the telescope reports back that the object being slewed to is below the horizon or out of limits (if you have any set) then you will be informed of that fact.
[Chg] If you sort a time column in the observing or planning list by Control-clicking the heading, a dialog pops up and asks for the time offset by which you wish to sort the column. e.g. if you specify 20:00 then all times between 20:00 and midnight will be sorted first followed by 0:00 through 19:59.
[Chg] Same time offset solution if you're using the Object->Sort Objects... feature.
[Chg] High-Precision Slewing can now specify maximum slewing hop (in degrees) to reach target. If the required hop is too big, you can slew to intermediate stars and sync, and then do a further hop. This is useful for those of you (listen up Canberra, Australia) who like to sit inside with a remote connection and a CCD camera with a small FOV and make several small hops and syncs to reach a distant target.
[Chg] Arbitrary rotation of the FOV via a slider control is now possible.
[Chg] Added the Celestron Ultima 2000 and Meade LX200 14" telescopes to the telescope list in Resources.
[Chg] Separate sliders for Star and DSO magnitude limits in the Field of View.
[Chg] Site resources now have a Sky Brightness parameter (magnitudes/arcsec²). It can be entered manually, or if you change the Bortle Dark Sky rating an approximate value appropriate to that rating will be entered for you.
[Chg] ODM calculations now use the Sky Brightness for the currently selected site, rather than a blanket (rather optimistic) value that assumes you have absolutely dark skies (as dark as the far side of the moon during a lunar eclipse...).
[Chg] Use larger font size option in Preferences->General->Observation/Planning Lists increases to size of the text in those lists.
[Chg] Surface Brightness (SB) column added to observing list.
[Chg] Log Object Contrast (LOC) column added to observing list.
[Chg] Support to improve labels in the FOV (Preferences->FOV). Options to avoid overlapping labels, and additional pointers to associate text with objects where necessary.
[Chg] Various new telescopes and eyepieces added to the pre-defined resource lists.
[Chg] Preferences now stored in a non-localised format.
[Chg] Import/Export now has the option to specify arbitrary strings to separate fields.
[Chg] Import/Export now has the option to specify whether to use localised formatting for numbers. Useful if you want to import text in a numeric format that doesn't match your computer's.
[Chg] Additional functionality in File->Merge... allows selection of merged objects via field value.
[Chg] Object Rise and Set times (and hence object visibility) can be calculated with respect to the user-defined horizon (i.e. now you can compute what time that pesky star is going to rise above your roof). To do this you need to set the Preferences->General->Rise/Transit/Set->Use site horizon setting. Note: currently this does not include moonrise and moonset. It also adds a bit of time onto visibility calculations (only if your site has a user-defined horizon).
[Chg] Added some requested eyepieces to the resources list.
[Chg] Improvements to Open/Create dialog - now has a list of recently opened documents.
[Chg] Option on Sky chart to show Ecliptic and Galactic Equator.
[Chg] Added Rigel Quick Finder reticle support to the Field of View.
[Chg] Added ability to "stripe" alternate lines with a background colour in the observation/planning lists to help with legibility across wide screens. See: Preferences->General->Observation/Planning Lists->"Stripe" alternate lines.
[Chg] Added PosAngle (Position Angle) field to planning and observation lists (and various other places such as import/export, AutoStar tours, etc.).
[Chg] Galaxies with a catalogue value of Position Angle will be displayed with the correct orientation in the FOV.
[Chg] Option in Preferences->General to take into account atmospheric refraction when calculating apparent altitude of an object. The current equations assume you are observing in vacuo. The atmosphere has an effect on the apparent altitude (elevation) of an object near the horizon. The maximum effect at the horizon is about 0.5° and diminishes rapidly as the altitude increases. This option is for the anal-retentive folk who like looking at objects on the horizon. Note: this only has an effect on rise/set times and altitude display. However it does make the processor work a bit harder, so if you don't need exact rise times, etc. I suggest leaving it switched off.
[Chg] Improved Sky chart. Pointing at object or alignment star reveals more info below chart. Also less chart text overlap (a la Field of View).
[Chg] Option in Sky chart to draw constellation boundaries.
[Chg] Field of View chart can now display up to 60° (formerly restricted to 30°).
[Chg] Added University Optics eyepieces to the Eyepiece list (by request).
[Chg] The Mac OS X version of EquinoX now supports retrieving RA/Dec coordinates from that application from AstroPlanner. V4.0.1 or after will be required.
[Chg] The Mac OS X version of EquinoX now supports option-clicking on an object: it will add that object to the current plan (Preferences option).
[Chg] The Mac OS X version of EquinoX now supports command-clicking on an object: AstroPlanner will command the connected telescope to slew to the coordinates.
[Chg] Added a number of "pre-wired" custom reticles for a number of common CCD cameras and sensors.
[Chg] In the FOV tab, the Get Objects... button has been replaced by a Spiral Search... button. The Get Objects... button functionality has been moved to Object->Get FOV Objects.... The Spiral Search... button does the same as Telescope->Start Spiral Scan... after which the caption changes to Spiral Search (without the "...") and has the same effect as Telescope->Continue Spiral Scan... (unless it is Shift-clicked, when it will revert to the Start Spiral Scan functionality).
[Chg] Preferences->Catalogues. The catalogue list now has a "F" checkbox column. If a catalogue is checked it will be enabled in the FOV catalogue list when a new plan document is opened.
[Chg] Select from catalogue... dialog now lets you restrict the visible constellations to those currently visible rather than all possible constellations visible from the user's latitude.
[Chg] There's now a setting in Preferences->Telescope to precess incoming telescope RA/Dec coordinates from current epoch to epoch 2000.0. This is more for completeness, since the difference in coordinate values between J2000.0 and 2003.6 is well below the readout precision of any scope I know (that's likely to be supported by AstroPlanner).
[Chg] Page numbering and print date and time options moved from Preferences->Printing to the print dialogs, where they more rightly belong.
[Chg] When printing lists of objects there is now an option to add the object ID or IDs on each page to the footer (useful when you're flipping through those 30 pages in the dark for a particular object.
[Chg] Support for USNO SA 2.0 stellar catalogue. This is a single-CDROM, pared-down version of the 11 CDROM A2.0 monster. Although you can use it on earlier versions of AstroPlanner, an option has been added (Preferences->USNO) to specify using the SA catalogue so that if you are using it from a CD-ROM it won't try and work out what CD-ROM you are planning to load it from. It works quite well from hard disk and takes up a "mere" 640 MB. Note: The USNO capability is only available to paid-up users.
[Chg] Select from catalogue... dialog now has the parameters to select a range of Difficulty Index for double stars.
[Chg] Comet/Minor planet list (non-ASTORB/MPCORB) now includes checkbox next to each entry so that multiple objects can more easily be selected.
[Chg] The extended ODM information (eyepieces, etc.) is now appended to the Notes information below the observing list (where applicable) for any selected object (based on the Current Telescope setting).
[Chg] When printing observations, you can now restrict those printed observations by date, site, telescope, rating, etc.
[Chg] In order to allow more text to be displayed, the font and size used in the text underneath the Field of View chart is now the font and size selected for the FOV chart in Preferences->FOV. i.e. you can reduce the size of the font or select a more readable one if necessary.
[Chg] The Telescope->Telescope Communication menu command and window have been re-titled to Test Telescope Communication to avoid confusion.
[Chg] When no serial port has been selected, the checkbox at the top left of the observing tab is underlined ("implying" a link) and clicking it will now open the preferences at the Telescope/GPS tab so that a serial port can be defined.
[Chg] If telescope connectivity fails, the alert that appears now has an "Open Preferences" button that will open the preferences to the Telescope/GPS tab.
[Chg] Shift-clicking in the FOV will centre the clicked coordinates in the FOV. If you are pointing at an object when you shift click (its information is being displayed under the chart), the the catalogue RA/Dec of that object will be used.
[Chg] Uranometria 2000.0 (1st edition) chart numbers now supported.

[Fix] Fixed a problem that causes a crash when exporting under certain conditions.
[Fix] Fixed some inconsistencies with FOV labelling.
[Fix] Fixed (hopefully) a bug that caused the "Collect OTA temperature" feature on LX200GPS scopes to corrupt slew coordinates. Especially nasty if you have the feature configured to request the temperature every 10 seconds.
[Fix] Fixed (hopefully) a bug that caused bogus slews on Meade telescopes (possibly only LX200GPS) if the "Don't use Long Mode" setting was on and the scope is already in Long Mode when you connect.
[Fix] Fixed a bug that stopped a Select from catalogue... search on Visibility from functioning correctly.
[Fix] Fix to Celestron NexStar telescope support to handle N5/8 controllers, which appear to echo back characters under some circumstances.
[Fix] Fix to various aspects of night vision mode on Windows systems.
[Fix] Fixed problem with displaying stars in Sky on non-US operating systems.
[Fix] Fixed non-US localisation problems with telescope and eyepiece lists in resources.
[Fix] Non-US localised systems should now load/save plans in the same text format as US systems.
[Fix] Fixed a number of other places where non-US localisation was problematic.
[Fix] Figured out and fixed that pesky long-standing Windows bug where quitting by closing the main window wouldn't work if no Plan documents were open. Woo Hoo. It may also resolve some other slow-down problems in the Resources window.
[Fix] Moon info now shown even if plan is empty.
[Fix] Initial or Manual visibility update now processes the last object in the list.
[Fix] Tweaked the code to detect and handle the Celestron Ultima 2000 telescope correctly.
[Fix] Comets and Minor Planets no longer show a bogus magnitude in the observing list if the information is not available to compute it.
[Fix] HP Slewing dialog no longer stalls during stalls when in the background.
[Fix] HP Slewing dialog no longer shows stars below the horizon.
[Fix] More intelligent handling of labels in the FOV. (More to come in the next pre-release version)
[Fix] ID and Date/Time columns of the Global Observation List now sort correctly.
[Fix] Improved handling of quotation mark characters (") in Autostar tour export.
[Fix] Catalogue annotation problem with catalogue entries with multiple identical IDs is fixed.
[Fix] Custom reticles can now be rotated through 360° instead of just 90°.
[Fix] Fixed problems with the Preferences->General->"Keep Lists Synchronised" setting.
[Fix] Doing Object->Change Epoch... on the selected object in the planning list no longer makes southern (-ve declination) objects northern. (i.e. the declination sign is preserved).
[Fix] If the AstroPlanner Resources file does not exist, AP now creates it, rather than falling over and expiring nastily.
[Fix] Fixed some minor problems with displaying dates, Julian dates, etc.
[Fix] File->Save now works a bit more reliably.
[Fix] Object->New Object now actually does something.