ramdor

iTrader: (2)

Anyone on here do any development for the iOS platforms?

Just got into it over the last couple of days and am enjoying it. Should have looked into this ages ago. Writing a small app to help me with my telescope at the moment, dipping into gps, accelerometer, CoreGraphics and OpenAL. Objective-C seems quite flexible once you get your head around the syntax. The approval process for the store looks a bit daunting though.

Markus

I'm not a dev, but am part of an iOS dev team (Intermediate QA) and have to use Xcode to build / debug / test apps.

Approval process can be "interesting" and "challenging", all depends on what your app does. Usually takes about two weeks from submission to approval of the app, but that does also depend on how busy things are, for example, trying to get an app approved in the last week will have been interesting due to the new iPad. Christmas is also a busy time as iTunes Connect (system used to manage store apps) shuts down for a couple of weeks.

If you're going to send out beta's of apps, look at TestFlight it is very, very good and has helped me out enormously. You can create a cut down version of it yourself (I've got an internal build system that uses some of the same ideas as testflight, nowhere near as feature complete though) but as TF is free, I would use that instead.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

heh, my first app up there now. It took about a week to get approved and thankfully did not have anything for them to turn it down. Something fairly simple to help with my telescope but introduced me to the iOS platform. Scope Help

Already working on the update, and there have been about 200 or so downloads in two days.

JackClark

Nice!

IWatkins

Works well!

Few things:

1. Greenwich is spelt incorrectly.
2. Consider adding Polaris clock position and transit times, for polar alignment.
3. The levelling beep, consider a continuous tone once level.
4. Look into red filtering the map display, or an option to switch it off. Same with adverts.

Cheers

Ian

Ant

Added a review for you

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

1) haha, yep Ian, nice spot, I noticed that spelling error after it got uploaded, always the way
2) on my to do list !
3) yep, needs changing. Not happy with it, needs a sensitivity too, so a tiny bit out of level puts the moon on the edge of the screen.
4) good idea - added todo list

I am in the middle of adding a bunch of other stuff to it now, it seems to have gone a bit overkill. Have been working on sqlite3 database integration to store telescope and eyepiece data. Couple of screenies so far :-



My to do list currently lol

1) Page to add telescopes and eyepieces which can be then selected together as a combination to give magnification details, dawes limit, true field of view, rayleight, stellar magnitude, light gathering etc etc
1.1) Landscape mode
1.2) Add option to copy lat/long from last gps read to the lat long config boxes.
1.3) Red tint filter for map + adds, perhaps app wide red tint option
2) Sun rise / set
3) Polaris or sigma octanis position for setting up polar alignment
4) Change the beep sound system as I am not happy with it, perhaps just make it beep when it is level.
5) Add a sensitivity to the bubble level, so a tiny bit out of level puts the moon at the edge instead of how it is now.
6) Add in app purchase to get rid of adverts (not 100% sure if apple are sending these to iPad's yet as I have not seen any on mine). Will only show the in app purchase option if the device has received an advert at some point.
7) Add a nice graphic for the cross hair level / compass.
8) Add a home page that can be customised by user with the data he/she wants to view.
9) Internationalisation
10) Update web site with FAQ, more info and screenshots.

Lots to do, so little time

Richie.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

cheers

IWatkins

Sounds excellent Richie.

Actually used it tonight on my NEQ6 mount on my iPad. Does the job perfectly. Having an accurate GPS clock is especially useful for setup.

Well, imaging run has started. So if I don't have round stars, I'll blame you.

Cheers

Ian

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

Nice one Ian. I should be outside with my scope too, but have been busy doing this for the last couple of weeks in the evening.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

Ian, does all this look right to you to work out LHA of polaris?

J2000 = julian date on 12h on 1 January 2000 (mid day)
LST = local sidereal time
RA = right ascension for polaris, 2h 31m 49.09s on J2000 and varies by 44.48 (+- 0.11) milliarcseconds per sidereal year

not sure about this bit here to work out variation

juliandatediff = julian now - J2000

years (of sidereal) = juliandatediff / 365.256363004 (365.x was correct at J2000, but I guess will be increasing as earth rotation slows, it is equivalent to the number julian days in a sidereal year)

variation (in milli arcsecs) = years * 44.48 (do i need to worry about the +- 0.11)

and then

LHA = LST - (RA + variation)

LHA (local hour angle in h,m,s) now equals point on sidereal clock face that polaris should be

or am I barking up the wrong tree

All this time date stuff is a nightmare, there is going to be a leap second this year, 30 june 12.

Richie.

IWatkins

Crikey Richie, sums, on a Friday? Are you mad

Been a while since I've had to do this from scratch but looks right. If you have the RA for Polaris correct (and I think it sounds about right) then yes, just add it all up.

As to worry about the +-0.11, I would say not. It's a cyclic amount over time and no one is going to be polar aligning to that degree of accuracy anyway. If they need that, you would switch to a drift alignment anyway.

If you want to double check figures coming out, I would recommend the following page to get a big list of transits to compare your software to: http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astron...ces/mrst-world

Cheers

Ian

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

oops, just found major issue with the julian day number code, consequently the sidereal times were up the spout. Also, I forgot to apply the UTC timezone to the Gregorian calendar object that I was using to pull out date parts so they were 8 seconds or so out as well.

Adding the stuff to do the polaris + associated stars at the mo.

Ah well, should have a new version ready to upload by tomorrow or Monday evening

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

ok, so still lots to do on the next version, hopefully complete sometime over easter break. Polar view is coming along, copes with precession and nutation. Doesn't know about proper motion yet. Lots of complicated maths so have been talking to Bill at Project Pluto and will be using some of his open source GNU lic code.

The inner wheel shows local hour, stars in the database so far are just Polaris and the ones that make up Cassiopeia and the Plough. Will have to display some more info on that screen, including an option to flip horiz + vert, and to use southern stars.

Anything else you can think of Ian to add on there?

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

one last thing Ian, I noticed you mentioned transit time for polaris. That is the point in time when its altitude is the highest for your location, so when it crosses your local meridian? Consequently if you looked at it in a polar scope it would be at the bottom, directly below center.

cheers Richie.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

new stuff from this morning.. man I should get on and finish this now, need to get it uploaded this weekend.



Richie.

GaryK

Yep xcode/ios dev here. That said i built my last app using corona sdk which allows you to target ios and Android.

ramdor

iTrader: (2)

New version 1.0.1 approved today http://bit.ly/IMIPrC . Took 4.5 days for the update, not too bad.

I was having some concerns that they would reject it because it uses some GNU licensed code to work out the star positions including precession + nutation. All went through though without any problems. Thankfully I got the thumbs up from Bill over at project pluto to use his code

Will be starting on the next update which will include red/night mode, a tidy up of the level tool, local time for the transits.