INITIAL Release for 21 June 2001 Eclipse

Greetings!  Well, E-day 2001 is drawing ever closer.  After 4 months of testing the baseline release of UMBRAPHILE 2.3.0 is now available.  I belive it is bug-free, but if anyone finds a problem, or needs a new feature added which you cannot do without for this eclipse please let me know..  Most of the changes to UMBRAPHILE since the previos version are internal, and will be invisible to those using it.  There are about a dozen or so changes in functionality and to some minor (but better) aspects of the user interface, which should be obvious to previous Umbraphile users.  I won't  bore you with the litany of detailed minor changes, but I will note those which will affect how you use Umbrahpile.

1. CENTERLINE CONTACTS - You now can tabulate the instants of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th contacts for locations along the centerline of the eclipse as a function of the Universal Time of mid-eclipse for any interval you wish starting and ending at U.T.'s you specify.  This is done through a new CENTERLINE CONTACTS menu item, which results in a new scrollable output window with this information, along with the altitude of the sun for each of the contacts.

2. CIIIOFF - A deficiency in the old Umbraphile has been alleviated.  You now can specify a separate time-offset for Contact III independent from Contact II.  This is used to affect limb profile corrections for the instants of tangential contacts.  This is a new parameter in the UMBRAPHILE input data file, and is fully described in the updated user documentation.

3. APPLY LIMB CORRECTIONS - This option is now available, and invoked through the Local Circumstances dialog.  When invoked, the times of contacts 2 and 3 are adjusted according to CIIOFF and CIIIOFF, as shown in the Local Circumstances window AND when building an exposure sequence table.

4. MAXDCYC - You can now set a threshold for checking the time-averaged duty-cycle of solenoid activation by specifying what the maximum tolerable duty cycle is for your hardware implementation.  Those using a fully electronic camera interface can set this value in the input data file to 100 and no diagnostic checking will be done when an exposure time table is built.

You will probably find many of the other "little" changes, but I believe only these warrant mentioning explicitly.

One other note:

I have *NOT* had an opportunity to upgrade Umbraphile to be used on a Universal Serial Buss.  I hope to look into this in the future, but please do not count on it for the 2001 eclipse.  If you have a USB PowerBook you can use a USB-to-Serial adapter and everything should work smoothly.

Please do let me hear of any problems you encounter - your fellow Umbraphile will appreciate your diligence.

Cheers,

Glenn Schneider
sofTouch APpLications
http://balder.prohosting.com/stouch/sofTouch.html
gschneid@mac.com

P.S. The last generation of "Release Notes" is still available through the UMBRAPHILE web site for historical reference.