Celestial Mixmaster for AstroPlanner
Celesital Mixmaster is a script for AstroPlanner
astronomical planning software.
It adds a new feature to AstroPlanner, which allows you to create a new
observing plan by selecting entries from existing observing plans. You can compare and
filter objects in various ways to produce the new observing list.
Requirements
- You must have AstroPlanner software version 1.5.4 or later, on Windows XP or Macintosh.
This script will not work on prior versions of AstroPlanner.
- You must be a registered (paid) user of AstroPlanner. The free edition does not support add-on scripts such as this one.
Installation
You can download and install the script from within
AstroPlanner. This is the recommended way to install the script. Follow
these steps:
- From the AstroPlanner main menu, choose Script > User Contributed Scripts > Download... The Download pane appears.
- In the Download pane, find and select "Celestial Mixmaster" from the list of user-submitted scripts, then click Download.
- The Download pane disappears, and the script appears in the Scripts pane.
- Make sure to check the Include in Script menu checkbox, then click Save.
- Close the Scripts pane.
- Now you can select Celestial Mixmaster from the AstroPlanner Script menu.
If you'd like to manually install the script, you can download it here. Consult the AstroPlanner
User's Guide for detailed instructions to manually install the script.
Usage
First, open one or two plan documents you'd like to mix, filter or combine.
Select Celestial Mixmaster from the Script menu. The Celestial Mixmaster dialog appears.
Select the first plan document using the Plan A menu. If you are combining Plan A with another plan document, select the second plan document using the Plan B menu.
Now, choose a radio button to indicate how you would like to combine them.
- Highlighted in Plan A (B is ignored)
- All objects highlighted in Plan A are copied to the new plan document. Plan B is ignored.
- Un-highlighted in Plan A (B is ignored)
- All objects not highlighted in Plan A are copied to the new plan document. Plan B is ignored.
- Appearing in both Plan A and Plan B
- If an object appears in both Plan A and Plan B, it is copied to
the new plan document. This is useful when you want to compare two
observing lists to see what objects they have in common.
- Appearing in either Plan A or Plan B
- If an object appears in either Plan A or Plan B, it is copied to
the new plan document. This is useful when you want to merge two
observing lists into one, with no duplicates in the result.
- Appearing in Plan A but not Plan B
- If an object appears in Plan A but not in Plan B, it is copied to the new plan document.
This is useful if you'd like to "subtract" one list from another
- say, you'd like to observe the Herschel 400 but would like to first
remove the Messier objects. Select the Herschels as Plan A and the
Messiers as Plan B, then choose this option.
- Appearing in Plan B but not Plan A
- If an object appears in Plan B but not in Plan A, it is copied to
the new document. This works just like the previous option, but in
converse. It is included for convenience.
Check the Copy observing log entries
checkbox to include all observing entries in the new list. If an object
appears in both Plan A and Plan B, the observing entries from both
plans are copied to the object in the new list.
Check the Use fuzzy matching to compare objects checkbox to have Celestial Mixmaster
consider position as well as catalog ID when it compares two objects to
see if they are the same. If the catalog ID does not match, Celestial Mixmaster will use the Right Ascension and Declination of the objects to see if they are in the same position in the sky. Celestial Mixmaster uses the same method for matching by position as AstroPlanner does in its Lookup Synonyms command.
Output
Click OK to generate the new observing plan, or Cancel to abort. Celestial Mixmaster prompts you for a file name to save the new document. After you
have selected a name for the new file, a new plan document window
opens. Celestial Mixmaster compares the two lists, and fills the new plan with the matching objects.
Click Cancel in the onscreen progress meter to abort processing. If you cancel, the resulting plan document will be incomplete.
Notes and Tips
- Owing to the way AstroPlanner processes scripts, Celestial Mixmaster can take a long time to complete. Let it run in the background while you surf the web, or go have a coffee while it runs.
- When the new plan document is complete, make sure you save it to disk!
Known Issues
Feedback
You can send questions, comments, bug reports, etc. to:
mportuesi@yahoo.com,
or post them in the Yahoo!
Groups AstroPlanner forum. I'd be interested to know if
anyone actually uses
this script and finds it useful. I created it for my own use, but I
would like it to be useful for others too.
Revision History
