KStars v3.3.6 is released

The KStars team is glad to announce the release for KStars v3.3.6 for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

This release is packed with many small quality of life improvements and bug fixes.

Intuitive Popup Menu

We cleaned up the popup menu so that mount actions are more intuitive. Took this chance as well to add some lovely Breeze icons to the mix.

We will continue to make mount controls even more accessible, especially to users over VNC.

Live Debayering

The KStars Live Video window can now debayer frames in real-time, thereby allowing for color video streams.

FITS Viewer

A few improvements landed in FITS Viewer:

• Updated Statistics display that can display value for each color channel separately, if present.
• Faster loading times thanks to a performance patch by Hy Murveit.

Astrometry.net Config and Indexes

Robert Lancaster made huge improvements to the handling of Astrometry.net configuration management and indexes. This should make these features a lot more accessible to a wider pool of users.

You can edit the astrometry.net configuration file directly in KStars. Furthermore, you can easily add/remove folders that that contain the index files. Many users have the indexes files stored in external hard drivers, and with this feature, it is now very easy to add the additional folders so they get utilized by the solver.

This change is accompanied by changes to the index downloader. Now you can check all your collections, and you have the ability to download indexes to a particular folder in your collection. A green index file indicates that the file is available in the system and does not require to be downloaded.

Observatory Weather Info

Wolfgang Reissenberger continued his outstanding work in improving the Observatory Module. With this release comes weather data directly displayed in the module. Along with the configurable thresholds for Warning and Alert states, you can rest easily knowing that KStars can take the appropriate actions to protect your observatory from adverse weather conditions.

Meridian Flip

A small quality-of-life improvement to the Meridian Flip value. You can now toggle between Degrees (default) and hours. Many mounts indicate the meridian flip limit in degrees so we opted to make this as default.

Mount Control Motion Reverse

You can now reverse the direction of each axis of motion separately, in case you prefer to controls to behave in the way you expect them to in the Mount Control Panel.

Setting Coordinates Manually

The dialog now opens pre-populated with the currently selected object coordinates. You can easily switch between JNow, J2000, or your own custom Epoch.

Under The Hood

Yuri Chornoivan is the unsung hero of internationalization efforts in KStars. Many volunteers work in KDE internationalization effort and Mr. Chornoivan keeps a vigilant eye on KStars to make sure it remains accessible to the widest audience possibly globally.

Mr. Chornoivan replaced many obsolete functions in KStars with their up-to-date alternatives.