AkastroidChangelog
What changed in each release, newest first.
Improved stacking and sharpening for planets and the Moon
- Improved stacking and sharpening algorithm for planets and the Moon.
Three steps for every picture, nightscapes, and sharper handling of what you open
- After processing there are two pages, Edit and Export, so the job is Process, Edit, Export for every subject. Edit holds the looks (deep sky), the polishing controls and Annotate in one place; a planet opens Edit on its controls.
- Nightscapes are a door of their own on Home and on the left rail, for editing, not processing: you open one finished picture (a Milky Way, an aurora, a moonlit landscape) and it comes up as it is, with no stacking and no processing, ready for Edit and Image Enhance. A picture is read as a nightscape from the lens and the picture itself, never from its file name; its sky keeps its own colour (an aurora stays green) and its stars keep their shape.
- The Sun is a door on Home beside Nightscapes, under Deep Sky and Planets & Moon. Compose and Mosaic stay on the left rail.
- A capture is read as the Sun or the Moon from its own record and from the picture, never from the file name, so a bright Sun is never finished as the Moon and a Venus crescent is never the Moon.
- A star field opened under Planets & Moon, or a planet opened under Deep Sky, is stopped with a message and one button to the right place.
- Image Boost is now Image Enhance, under an AI Enhance switch at the top of Edit that is on by default; it still runs only when you press it. The credit count is under Help, View remaining credits; the card shows Add credits and the price of a credit.
- Image Enhance checks in three steps: Akastroid reads what the picture is, a vision model confirms it, and the answer is checked as that kind before it is shown. A nightscape may change as much as the answer makes it; a wrong answer is not shown, and the credit is kept.
- Credits: a free copy has 2 to try; the unused ones move onto your licence key when you buy. A key gets none of its own.
- One picture opened under Planets & Moon or the Sun opens as it is too, with no stacking or processing, ready for Edit and Image Enhance. A deep-sky picture is still processed. Each of those pages takes one picture at a time.
- Planets and the Moon: the sharpest 55% of frames is the recommended default, with chips and the quality graph to change it. A planet on a sky that is not black no longer has a dark ring round it.
- Export writes the picture on screen: the enhanced one when Image Enhance was applied, your own otherwise.
- Home shows Nightscapes, Deep Sky, Planets & Moon and the Sun in one view, each with a Choose file button; a phone's Moon or a sky over land is sent to the right page.
- Image Enhance on a deep-sky picture shows the answer as it came back once it passes the check. It also works on the Sun, with the filter it was shot through.
- A stacked deep-sky session says where its faint parts come from: raise Exposure, then Sharpening.
- Planets, the Moon and the Sun: a notice says how many frames were kept and what keeping fewer costs; the Rotation animation is offered for every planet and plays at 5 frames a second by default.
- An AVI over 1 GB is read whole. Capture programs store a file that size in segments, and the reader took only the first one, so a 5,000-frame capture was stacked from a few hundred frames. Found by a user on 28 October.
- Fujifilm X-Trans raws open. A raw's exposure and ISO are read. A light whose name contains a word such as darktable is no longer filed as a dark frame.
- The Home cards accept any file; an unsupported one is reported when it is opened.
- Licence keys are kept on uninstall so a reinstall is instant. On Linux the window no longer comes up blank on some graphics drivers.
- If the app ever stops mid-processing, the next start records the step it was on, so it can be fixed.
File names in any language and cleaner Moon edges
- Akastroid no longer closes when a file or folder name contains letters such as Ü, Ä, é, or Cyrillic, Chinese and other scripts. Everything that reads a file name now handles every language.
- A Moon or Sun close-up that drifted a long way across the frame while recording no longer has streaks along one side or a thin red line at the edge. The picture is cut to the part every frame covered.
- Beginner mode is now on for new installs. Switch it off once and it stays off.
Clearer planet stacking and a Beginner mode
- A Beginner mode switch on the Final polishing step, off until you turn it on. Akastroid's own processing and stacking use no AI.
- Planets, the Moon and the Sun now stack every frame by default. The share of frames to keep, and Stack again, are also on the Final polishing step, so you can always go back and change it.
- The top bar shows how many frames were stacked and their share, and Output shows the size your file will be saved at.
- Videos recorded by ASIAIR are no longer mistaken for Seestar videos.
- Larger labels on the planet sliders, and the split-screen handle no longer sits on the planet.
The guides feed carries new articles. Release notes are posted on this page.