(1) The EQT View black background has been replaced with a more good-looking light blue sky. A color gradient makes it more suitable for publication into a document or whatever.
(2) EQT View Options : a combo-box disappeared, replaced by a button panel. Generally speaking, when choices are less than three or four, I prefer to use button panels instead of combo-boxes.
(3) EARTH View Stereographic Map : sometimes location names located within a few kilometers become illegible because they overlap with each other. So i decided to place location names randomly (up left, up right, bottom left, bottom right). As it happens every time the graphic window is repainted maybe a better placement of names can be found.
(4) Main Window : the input box located into the Time Flow Panel can now manage decimal entries.
(5) Graphic Terminals T1, T2, T3, etc. now warn the user when topocentric calculations are disabled, or when the 100K years option is enabled and DE44X are disabled.
(6) Stellar Archive: in the “Corrections Applied” you can see now how the distance and visual magnitude of stars change over time. In this case Sirius’ distance from baricenter of Solar System 12000 years ago was 2,71 parsec (2.64 today) and its visual magnitude was -1.38 (-1.44 today). Little variations, but they are there though.
(7) The Stellar Archive goes up to the 1K version. Visual magnitudes of Hipparcos stars are now picked up by the XHIP catalogue.
(8) The STF82 DeltaT curve has been replaced from the one computed by Morrison in 2021. Still doing tests with my model UKST24C2 compliant with the eclipse studied by P. Griffin (Loughcrew 3340 BCE). Also added the model used by IMCCE web site, applied until 1620 CE.
(9) Main Menu: INFO. Added a reminder in the Info Menu about the Greek Alphabet.
(10) Horizontal View – Main Graphic Window: during a totality due to a Solar Eclipse now the solar corona appears and the sky darkens showing stars and whatever is above the horizon.
(11) Main Menu: File and [7] – Merging the default Location File with the local one is now more sophisticated. Locations I have added to new versions of UrukFSP can now be added or ignored one by one. At the moment I compare the location name only, but in the future this function could have further enhancements. For example I don’t update already existing records, only adding is performed. As I said before, better a duplicate (it can be deleted manually though) than a data loss. As visible in the figure below, only new locations marked with ‘y’ or ‘Y’ in the column ADD will be added to the local file.
(12) Tool 07, computing moon phases, has been enhanced. Just below the Fool Moon tabulation we can find the date of Winter Solstice (actually year-1, year, year+1). A full moon in the past, close the winter solstice, was more important than the others. Furthermore, going backwards the date of WS shifts gradually because of the inaccuracy of the proleptic Julian calendar, so a reminder is pretty useful.
NOTE : if you already have an earlier version of UrukFSP the new location file will not overwrite your local file contained into UrukFSP_USR/Locations. Anyway you can call Menu File ==> [7] and verify if the new release contains others locations to be optionally added to your local file.
NOTE : Unlike most programs, in UrukFSP moving in the EQT, HOR and STEREOGRAPHIC EARTH VIEW windows doesn’t require holding down the left mouse button and dragging it to the destination. Simply click the left mouse button on the new position that needs to be placed at the center of the window. Alternatively, it is possible to rotate the current window by moving the mouse over the boxes indicating AR, DEC, ALT, AZM, LON, LAT if enabled, and acting on the mouse wheel. This can be done in steps of 10° and 1°.
