Watney Solver v1.1.1

Quality of life release, v1.1.1

This release does not bring anything big to the table, only adding configurable values and fixing small issues.

Changelog

Added

• 'ra_hms' and 'dec_dms' properties to solve result, for convenience. These are the RA, Dec coords in Hours Minutes Seconds and Degrees Minutes Seconds. Applies to both CLI and API solvers.

• Several parameter default values can now be set from the CLI solver configuration file:

  • defaultMaxStars
  • defaultStarDetectionBgOffset
  • defaultLowerDensityOffset
  • defaultHigherDensityOffset
  • defaultNearbySampling
  • defaultNearbyParallelism
  • defaultNearbySearchRadius
  • defaultBlindMinRadius
  • defaultBlindMaxRadius
  • defaultBlindSampling
  • defaultBlindParallelism

  This is useful when constantly using the same values but they differ from the CLI solver built-in defaults.

  The 'defaultStarDetectionBgOffset' allows tweaking the built-in star detection sensitivity. This was added to allow including dimmer stars but note that too low values may cause noise to be interpreted as signal (values 2.0 .. 3.0 recommended).

Changed

• Produced log file should no longer have the UTF-8 BOM marker in the beginning.

• Some CLI arguments are now optional, and fall back to built-in (or configured) default values when not provided:

  Blind:

  • --min-radius
  • --max-radius

  Nearby:

  • --search-radius

Fixed

• In CLI solver, relative path to quad database ('./db' etc.) in configuration should now work correctly when invoking the solver from a different working directory. The relative path is first assumed to be relative to the executable, and if that path is not found, it is then assumed to be relative to the configuration file.

Downloads

CLI solver

watney-solve-cli-1.1.1*

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-1.1.1*

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.

Watney Solver v1.1.0

Second major release build of the Watney solver

Major changes

Changed

• Major performance improvements to blind solves. Caching and the new smaller database have greatly increased performance and blind solves perform 30-80% faster compared to Watney 1.0.
• Noticeable performance improvements to nearby solves thanks to faster database initialization and less file reads.
• Introduced new database format (version 3) which introduces separate index
  files for faster database initialization and the quads are now packed into
  smaller size, dropping the database size by 18%. Note: the new Watney version
  is not compatible with version 2 database files due to major data
  structure changes. New database files for version 3 format must be downloaded and used.

Added

• The CLI parameter --image-stdin allows reading image from standard input stream,
  meaning that you can for example use piping to pass the image instead of
  using the --image parameter which reads the image from a file.
• Support for .xyls files (x,y lists) in the CLI solver.
  New parameters are: --xyls, --xyls-stdin, --xyls-imagesize.
  The --image* and --xyls* parameters are mutually exclusive,
  and --xyls and --xyls-stdin always requires --xyls-imagesize to be set as
  well.

Fixed

• WatneyAstrometry.Core fix: in nearby solves the min-max range is now
  correctly checked, so that min radius can never be entered as 0.
  This bug existed in 1.0.0 which caused the CLI solver to always fail
  when using the '--use-fits-headers' parameter.

Downloads

CLI solver

watney-solve-cli-1.1.0*

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-1.1.0*

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.

Gaia2 Quad Database v3

For Watney v1.1.0 and later

Third Gaia2 catalog star quad database (only) release.
Database files are needed for the solver to work.

• DB Version 3 (database with index files)
• Total 15 passes (0 .. 14), pass factor of Sqrt(2)
• Split into multiple downloads, if you're confused what to download, see Wiki on quad database for details
• Lowest density pass with 20 stars per square degree, highest density pass with 2560 stars per square degree

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Astrometric Solver CLI App v1.0.0

First release build of the Watney CLI solver app.

The package contains 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.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Astrometric Solver API App v1.0.0

First release of the Watney API app. Includes the Astrometry.net compatibility API.

The package contains 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.

Gaia2 Quad Database

NOTE: For Watney 1.0.0 and earlier only!

Second Gaia2 catalog star quad database (only) release.
Database files are needed for the solver to work.

• DB Version 2
• Total 15 passes (0 .. 14), pass factor of Sqrt(2)
• Split into multiple downloads, if you're confused what to download, see Wiki on quad database for details
• Lowest density pass with 20 stars per square degree, highest density pass with 2560 stars per square degree

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Astrometric Solver App v0.10.0

Another early binary release of the Watney Astrometric Solver CLI app.

Features added:

• Sampling, which significantly helps to reduce blind solve times
• Minor other performance improvements

The package contains a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 5 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.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Watney Astrometric Solver App v0.9.0

The first binary release of the Watney Astrometric Solver CLI app.

The package contains a single-file, self-contained executable. Therefore .NET 5 runtime installation is not required
Initial testing has been performed with Windows 10 x64, Ubuntu Mate Linux 20.04 arm64, and Linux Ubuntu 20.04 x64. OSX version is untested.
You'll also need to download the Gaia2 Quad Database release below.

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.

Click on > Assets to view the downloads.

Gaia2 Quad Database

First Gaia2 catalog star quad database (only) release.

• DB Version 2
• Total 11 passes, pass factor of sqrt(2)
• Lowest density pass with 20 stars per square degree, highest density pass with 640 stars per square degree