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Even previous versions of SIPS remembered, which cameras are
connected as main imager, guider and context camera. And if these
cameras are online upon next SIPS startup, then they were
automatically connected. But if any remembered camera was not
connected to the computer (or powered up), SIPS could not immediately
connect to it. In such case the camera identification was discarded
and the user had to manually invoke scanning after camera was plugged
(and powered up in the case of large cameras with dedicated power
supply). Re-scanning of all cameras naturally caused disconnection of
all currently selected cameras, so it was necessary to chose roles of
respective cameras again (which camera will be used as imager, guider
and possibly context camera).
New SIPS v3.7 allows users to check the Automatically Connect
to Selected Imaging/Guiding/Context Camera Only check box upon
particular camera role selection. SIPS then remembers, which driver is
responsible for handling of the selected camera and how the driver
identifies this particular camera. This information is displayed in
the Driver: and Id: lines on the top of the camera
selection dialog box.
When the SIPS is launched and the particular camera is not online,
SIPS has no means to determine actual camera designation, type,
resolution etc. It only knows the driver and identification, so it
displays the camera driver as camera name and indicates camera is not
connected.
When the camera comes online, SIPS reads all necessary information
from the camera to update GUI elements and switches states from
(unplugged) to (connected). Camera is immediately
ready to use, without any user intervention.
Hint: Thanks to the above described camera handling changes, SIPS
v3.7 newly allows usage of different cameras from different instances
of SIPS running on the same PC. Previous versions of SIPS “grabbed” for themselves
all cameras attached at the instant of SIPS startup. If it was
desired to handle one camera from one SIPS instance and a second
one from another running SIPS, it was necessary to:
Attach (power on) one camera only, disconnect the other
one. Run first instance of SIPS and select the connected
camera. Only then it was possible to attach (power on) the second
camera. When the second instance of SIPS was launched, the second
camera could be selected, because the first running SIPS instance
did not see it during startup. New SIPS v3.7 blocks only cameras, which are actually
selected as Imager, Guider or Context cameras. All other cameras are
leaved for usage by other SIPS or other software packages using e.g.
ASCOM drivers. Warning: The functionality described above is available for cameras
connected directly to the USB port of the host PC as well as for
cameras connected through the Gx Camera Ethernet Adapter. But it is
necessary to update the Ethernet Adapter device firmware to version 31
or higher. Bug fixes
Majority of bug fixes are related to the Photometry
tool:
When the photometry was run on images containing
distorted star shapes (e.g. some software package zeros pixels,
which should be saturated at value 65535, significantly
distorting star profile and altering area statistics), newly
introduced tests eliminate false stars with centroid coordinates
out of expected range. Fixed bug, which appear when an edit box, allowing to
name a star in the star sheet, was not properly confirmed
(closed) and new star was selected in the image. Fixed bug leading to possible attempt to divide by zero
when Photometry tool was used on Hi-DPI displays and the Light
Curve pane was shrunk below allowed minimum.
One bug was related to camera driver configuration in
64bit version of SIPS:
SIPS is a freeware and can be downloaded from the Download section of this web site.
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