We’ve just released another great update to Observatory. This time we have integrated the services provided by astrometry.net to bring blind plate solving to Observatory. Choose the new Blind Match command to plate solve your images without providing an estimate of the image center and scale.

I think plate solving cannot be much easier than this:

Note that since blind plate solving uses an internet service, its performance varies widely, taking anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes per image. Time compression was used for parts of the video above.

In addition to the new blind plate solver, we have enhanced the photometry inspector with error estimates. We have improved the way it automatically populates the magnitude field of the comparison star, and automatically sets its estimated error based on the catalog used.

See the release notes for the complete list of changes and bug fixes.

Enjoy!

Today we released Observatory 1.2.2. It is a small maintenance release that resolves a crash which could occur immediately after choosing the Import Images command. Already imported images are now once again disabled in this sheet on macOS High Sierra.

Work is underway on a much larger maintenance release, but we figured this crash takes priority.

Release notes here.

Check the Mac App Store, because we’ve just released an update to Observatory.

It resolves various bugs that conspired against the plate solver and align adjustment.

There’s a new Automatic Detection Sensitivity setting for the plate solver, and when it fails to find a solution, it now has a handy “Retry” button to quickly retry it with adjusted settings. It also displays more helpful information and a link to the relevant section in the documentation.

Also new is the “Forums” command in the Help menu for quick access to our recently launched Code Obsession Forums. And it fixes a few macOS High Sierra specific issues.

Oh and we made this tumultuous world a little bit safer by securing our website with HTTPS.

For the full set of release notes, head here.

Enjoy!

We have just set up the Code Obsession Forums on our website. Please join if you want to discuss the use of Observatory and related issues with us or other users.

You can view discussions without subscribing. However, if you wish to post to a board, or receive new posts via email, you must join the forums first. To join, just visit its web page and choose the “Register” link.

These forums are not official support channels. Anyone who encounters a problem with our software (or isn’t sure if it’s working correctly), or who would like to request a feature or enhancement, should contact tech support directly for assistance.

It’s always truly exciting when one of your products is reviewed, and especially if it is in a major astronomy publication like Sky & Telescope. If you have not done so, please check out the S&T Test Report section on pages 60–63 of the March 2018 Sky & Telescope.

After reading the review, there’s a few items I wanted to point out:

• Explicitly adding a source folder is only necessary if you want to selectively import images of that folder. The reason for this two-step process is that Observatory is sandboxed, i.e., macOS prevents it from accessing any file or folder unless explicitly permitted by the user.

• We have received a few reports of problems with the plate solver and image registration. These issues will be addressed in the next maintenance update (1.2.1). Please make sure to always report any such issues.

Thank you Sky & Telescope and Richard S. Wright, Jr. for the review!