UMBRAPHILE_RN240.html

UMBRAPHILE 2.4.0 - Release Notes 27 January 2002

GENERAL:

This is the first UMBRAPHILE update in preparation for the 04 December 2002 Total Solar Eclipse. Complete program documentation, release notes for pervious versions of UMBRAPHILE may be found at:

http://balder.prohosting.com/stouch/UMBRAPHILE.html

Comments, questions, and bug reports should be sent to: Glenn Schneider; gschneider@mac.com

Suggestion from current and potential users are WELCOME!

SYSTEM:

As before, UMBRAPHILE is not distributed as a "fat binary", but is released as separate 68K and PowerPC versions. From the user's perspective they are identical (though, of course the PowerPC version run faster). UMBRAPHILE has been tested on Macintosh operating systems through MacOS 9.1. The 68K version will run on OS's as old as 7.0 on platforms such as the original PowerBook 100. The hardware interface for using UMBRAPHILE as a camera controller is based on the "older" Macintosh serial (RS-232) port. UMBRAPHILE will work fine as a controller on USB equipped MacOS (such as the PowerBook G4 {Titanium}) by using a USB-to-SERIAL adapter. A MacOS X version of UMBRAPHILE does not (yet) exist but UMBRAPHILE 2.4.0 PPC runs with no (known) problems in "classic" mode (MacOS 9 emulation) on MacOS X machines.

WHAT'S NEW/DIFFERENT IN 2.4.0

1. Many internal changes for cross-MacOS version and hardware platform compatibility. Most of these are "invisible" to users - but because of significant internal changes from version 2.3.x to 2.4.0, older versions are no longer supported.

2. LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES. One can optionally elect to apply corrections in the computation of local circumstances due to the effects of atmospheric refraction via the Local Circumstances dialog. Such effects are essentially negligible for solar elevations in excess of about 10°. It must be noted that a canonical atmospheric scale height/refractive index model with a zero-point of 20¡ C and 1070 mb at sea level is used. Temperature/pressure profiles of the atmosphere along the line-of-site to the Sun can vary significantly from this and affect the fidelity of these corrections - particularly at very low solar elevations. For more information on refraction corrections see:
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/ECLIPSE_86/ECLIPSE_86.html

3. LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES. The position angle of all contacts visible from a given topocentric location (measured eastward from north along the solar limb) are now reported (P°) in the Local Circumstances window.

4. CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CONTACTS. Tables of centerline circumstances and contacts for uniformly spaced Universal Times of mid-eclipse may now be computed for arbitrary observer heights (altitudes) above mean sea level. Along with the run of times desired, the altitude (in meters) is now specifiable in the CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CIRCUMSTANCES dialogs. The observer's altitude is taken as the same for all locations along centerline. This option was put into UMBRAPHILE to facilitate generation of centerline information for airborne eclipse observations.

5. CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CONTACTS. The UT start, end, and time increments in the CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CONTACTS dialogs may now be entered (and tables generated) to the nearest tenth (0.1) second. The CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CIRCUMSTANCES tables which are generated have been reformatted to accommodate this.

6. CENTERLINE CONTACTS. Like (2) above, the Position Angles for all contacts in the CENTERLINE CONTACTS table are now given along with the contact times and solar altitudes. The Centerline Contacts table has been further reformatted in providing this information.

7. CENTERLINE CONTACTS. For contacts which occur with the sun below the horizon, the solar altitude is not given in the CENTERLINE CONTACTS table (reported as ----). The solar altitudes below the horizon for such locations are reported in the LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES window.

8. WINDOW SCROLL BACK. The *MAXIMUM* number of scroll-back lines in the CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CIRCUMSTANCES windows have been increased to 300. You will not see this the FIRST time you run UMBRAPHILE 2.4.0. UMBRAPHILE will check the amount of available memory for window scrolling and adjust the maximum scroll-back line size which will be in effect the next time to use UMBRAPHILE 2.4.0. To enable a larger window scroll-back regions just startup UMBRAPHILE 2.4.0, then QUIT. The next time you start up UMBRAPHILE 2.4.0 you will be able to scroll-back up to 300 lines (or as much as memory allows) in the CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CIRCUMSTANCES windows.

9. BUG FIXES. Erroneous results were computed in the CENTERLINE and CENTERLINE CONTACTS windows (but not elsewhere) in the last few minutes of the 04 January 2002 TSE. LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES input dialog values were being overwritten when generating CENTERLINE CONTACTS. These, and some minor error handing "features" have been corrected.