Well, just put in freeze mode any developing activity, I’m testing the code. Hopefully the new version should be out within the 1st decade of September. Now three views are available: Equatorial (narrow field, always centered on a planet), Map, that is a wide field Lambert Projection map and the new Stereographic Horizontal Map, zoomable until the planetary discs fill the screen. Scroll bars have disappeared. Now the field can be changed by Spin Controls and the left click of the mouse, for dragging the map. A right click pop menu is now present for identifying or tracking any object on the map.
A new panel called MLR (Mean Lunar Radius) is available. When searching accurate timings for a contemporary solar eclipse it’s better to use two different values for MLR, one better for outer contacts (C1, C4), the other more suitable for inner contacts (C2,C3).
Partially redesigned the Preferences Window. Now the user can choose where to place all DE431 files, as an alternative to the default path.
Also some calibration points for DeltaT have been added and several minor bugs corrected.
Representation of planets phase: the standard graphic library of Lazarus allows filling an area on Windows only. Under Linux or MacOS the code is simply ignored. In this case the bright limb can be identified by the PABL (Position Angle of Bright Limb) indicator. Sounds weird but it’s exactly what happens. Once the 1.0 release is out I will search for an alternate graphic library allowing me to handle fillings, transparencies and other stuff much better than I can do now.
