FITS Fast Viewer - User Manual

Welcome to FITS Fast Viewer! The highly performant Windows-based solution tailored for astrophotographers to rapidly review raw FITS files and effectively sort out bad/flawed frames right before the stacking process.

1. Installation & First Launch

1. Extract the Archive: Download the latest .zip file, right-click it, and select "Extract All..." to a regular folder.
2. Run the Setup: Open the newly extracted folder and run the FITS_Fast_Viewer_Setup_v1.x.exe by double-clicking it.
3. Complete the Installation: The Inno Setup wizard will cleanly guide you through the process (Default path: C:\Program Files\FITS Fast Viewer). It will optionally drop a shortcut to your desktop.
4. Launch the Application: Following a successful installation, you can fire up the program via the Windows Start Menu or your new desktop shortcut!

2. Controls & Navigation

The software architecture is heavily optimized to be operated without taking hands off the keyboard:

• Spacebar or Right Arrow: Show Next Image (which has already been decoded and memory-cached by an invisible background thread - zero loading time!).
• Left Arrow: Show Previous Image.
• X or Down Arrow: Reject Frame! Unhappy with the star shapes? The file is instantly dragged into a sub-directory labelled _bad_frames, followed by an automated transition to the next image sequence.

Image Viewport (Zoom & Real-time Pan)

• Zooming: Simply utilize your Mouse Wheel to seamlessly magnify into any pixel region.
• Panning: Keep the Left Mouse Button pressed down and physically drag the zoomed image context around.
• Reset Extents: A rapid Double-Click across the image viewport snaps the zoom factor back to 100% Fit-to-screen scale.
• Efficiency Tip: Your active Zoom Level and Cartesian offset coordinates remain absolutely persistent when scrolling to the next frame! This reduces evaluating star tracking distortions towards the optical corners to mere seconds per frame.

3. Tools & Features

Automated Trail & Error Detection Algorithms

Let an advanced algorithmic computer vision routine check the entire session automatically for you:

• Detects long satellite streaks, plane traces ("Trails"), or general eccentricities (Egg-stars caused by severe wind sheer or mount tracking drift). Sharp, adequately round stars are rigorously ignored.
• A Live Incident Tracker located in the top menu bar immediately prints the dynamic count of rejected files.
• Performance-heavy calculations can be aborted gracefully at any split-second using the red Stop-Button.

Quick Preview Stack

Select your frames and simply press Quick Preview Stack. The tool invokes mathematical "Phase Correlation Alignments" to super-fast register and integrate the raw sizes into one single master preview approximation.

FITS Header & Statistical Metrics (Sky Background)

• Metadata Infobox: Extracts all crucial camera and mount acquisition datasets directly off the native FITS Header cleanly anchored to the right UI margin without invasive scrolling layouts.
• Sky Context & Handled Stars: The matrix individually approximates the prevailing Sky Background integer value, paired with an estimated star count. Crucial for pinpointing sporadic cloud-interference variables per frame.
  Execution Boost: These exact metrics dump straight into individual .json sidecar files. Ergo, revisiting existing deep-sky sessions will not re-trigger calculations but instantly load known metrics!

4. UI Customization

• Multi-Language Binding: Navigate to the upper right corner to swiftly switch the application's entire localization context in real-time by clicking the Flag-Icons (🇩🇪 / 🇬🇧).
• Responsive Scaling Formats: Whether executed off a small laptop display or an ultra-wide desktop monitor: The GUI dynamically scales fluidly in every geometric axis down to a structural minimum of 800x600 pixels.

5. Version History (Changelog)