AstroImageBrowser - Astrophotography planning tool that can also be used to explore or browse astronomical objects.
Version: 1.1.2Images of astronomical objects in any part of the sky can be downloaded, manipulated, overlayed (with a grid, camera/CCD geometries, object labels or other pictures), converted, scaled, colorized, annotated, blinked, saved, cached and printed with AstroImageBrowser.
License: Free To Try $15.00
Operating System: Mac OS X
Homepage: homepage.mac.com
Developed by:
AstroImageBrowser is particularly useful as an astrophotography planning tool but can equally well be used to explore or browse astronomical objects. After you have planned and taken your picture you can use AstroImageBrowser to superimpose it on the DSS image.
If you are interested in Astronomy you should find AstroImageBrowser very helpful and fun even if you are not the fortunate owner of a telescope.
Here are some key features of "AstroImageBrowser":
· download Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) images from one of six all-sky surveys
· continuously adjustable download image sizes up to 1 square degree
· local caching of images to save redownloading image or to use AstroImageBrowser offline
· cache images are compressed to user's preferred format (BMP, JIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF with compression and quality when available)
· cache browser window to review available cache files with hyperlinks to reveal in Finder or open
· colorization of DSS images with color schemes under user control or choose from presets such as inverse and sepia
· over 13,000 internal database objects in the NGC, IC and Messier catalogs
· database constellation, magnitude, size and coordinate information
· instantaneous search based on search text even during entry
· save favourite searches under search menu (hit return after completing search text)
· RA/Dec coordinate specification to arbitrarily position DSS images
· locates nearest deep sky object to specified RA/Dec coordinates
· objects labels overlaid on DSS images
· color and transparency control of labels
· RA/Dec grid overlay with color control and control over major and minor spacing of grid lines
· continuous mouse over RA/Dec readout
· CCD/DSLR/webcam geometry overlay with support for SBIG CCD Cameras, Canon 10D 300D 350D 20D, 1.25" eyepiece with maximum 27mm field stop, 35mm film, 2" eyepiece with maximum 46mm field stop, Starlight Xpress SXV-H9C, ToUCam Pro webcam, Meade LPI, Meade DSI Pro, ...
· color control for CCD/DSLR/webcam geometry overlay
· CCD/DSLR/webcam offset and rotation controls
· telescope system focal length control with automatic image dimensioning
· option and option-shift mouse down control of CCD/DSLR/webcam geometry overlay
· saving of overlaid image in any image format (BMP, JIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF etc) at any size
· printing/saving as PDF of image with automatic landscape/portrait orientation to maximise printed image size
· saving of overlaid image as an Astroimagebrowser XML "Snapshot" file which holds the image, camera geometry, color settings, etc
· save and open XML "Color Skin" files which hold color information for colorization and image overlay colors
· customizable toolbar
· search and control retractable drawer
· multithreaded processing especially during downloading and saving
· overlay graphics use vector graphics with no resolution limit
· picture overlay using either drag and drop image from the Finder or by entering a URL
· scale, rotate and translate picture overlay
· save and open "Picture Archive" overlay files with either image data imbedded or specified by a URL
· opacity adjustment and blinking of Picture overlay for easy registration with DSS image.