Configuration

Configure the observer, observing sites and instruments that KOPR shares across its visual, image-processing, CCD and planning workflows.

Source-verified Field names, validation rules and active-context behaviour were checked against the current Settings dialog and main window.

Open and save Settings

Open Configuration › Settings. The dialog contains seven tabs: General, Locations, Telescopes, Cameras, Eyepieces, CCD Defaults and Processing.

Two save levels: the Save and Remove buttons on Locations, Telescopes, Cameras and Eyepieces write those list files immediately. The dialog-wide OK button commits General and CCD Defaults. Therefore, pressing Cancel does not undo list entries that were already saved or removed.

Select an existing item in the list, or click Add.
Enter or edit its fields.
Click the tab's Save button.
Use the dialog-wide OK button when General or CCD Defaults were changed.

When Settings closes, KOPR rebuilds the Configuration submenus and keeps the currently active Location, Telescope, Eyepiece and Camera whenever those rows still exist. The active selections are restored at the next startup rather than being forced to the first menu entry.

General

Field	Purpose	Requirement
ICQ code	Observer code written into observation output.	Required. Replace the initial `ICQxx` placeholder.
First name	Observer identity displayed in the KOPR title bar and used with output records.	Required.
Last name	Observer identity displayed in the KOPR title bar and used with output records.	Required.

KOPR refuses to complete first startup while any of these fields is empty or still contains the supplied placeholder identity.

Locations

Field	Format	Used by
Name	A unique descriptive name.	Configuration menu and status bar.
Longitude	Signed decimal degrees. East is positive; west is negative.	Ephemerides, altitude calculations and WStack topocentric context.
Latitude	Signed decimal degrees. North is positive; south is negative.	Ephemerides, altitude calculations and WStack topocentric context.
Altitude (m)	Observatory elevation in metres.	Topocentric calculations and Horizons/WStack location.
GMT +	Numeric offset from UTC, for example `1`, `2` or `-3`.	Planner local-time calculations. FITS observation times used by WStack remain UTC and are not shifted by this value.

Coordinate entry: the current Settings tab accepts numeric decimal values. Use a decimal point, not a comma. The older Add Location dialog can convert colon-separated degrees, but the main Settings editor validates numeric decimal fields.

The active location is required by all observing workflows. It is especially important for the Planner, comet altitude and Sun/Moon geometry, CCD observation metadata and WStack's topocentric comet calculations.

Telescopes

KOPR supports two instrument-geometry modes. Enter either a normal telescope with a focal length, or a fixed-magnification instrument with both magnification and field of view.

Field	Meaning
Name	Your descriptive instrument name shown in the Configuration menu.
Telescope type	ICQ instrument code. Clicking the field opens a selector populated from COBS when available, with a built-in fallback list.
Aperture diameter (mm)	Clear aperture in millimetres.
Focl. (mm)	Effective focal length for a normal imaging or visual telescope.
Zoom if fixed	Fixed magnification for binoculars or another fixed-magnification instrument. Use together with fixed FOV instead of focal length.
FOV if fixed	Fixed true field of view in degrees. Use together with fixed zoom.

Normal telescope: provide aperture and focal length; leave fixed zoom and FOV empty.
Fixed-magnification instrument: provide aperture, zoom and FOV; leave focal length empty.

CCD and WStack require focal length. A fixed-zoom/FOV telescope can support visual use, but KOPR cannot derive image scale for CCD processing from that mode. The synthetic WStack plate-scale estimate also requires focal length.

KOPR adds a runtime Naked Eye telescope choice. It is valid for visual observations, but not for CCD or WStack processing.

Cameras

Field	Meaning	Requirement
Name	Your descriptive camera name.	Required.
Camera ICQ code	Camera model/family code used in observation output.	Required; clicking opens the COBS/fallback selector.
Chip name	Detector or sensor name.	Required.
Chip ICQ code	Detector code used in observation output.	Required; clicking opens the COBS/fallback selector.
Resolution X / Y	Native image dimensions in pixels.	Required numeric values.
Pixel size X / Y	Unbinned pixel pitch in micrometres.	Required numeric values.
Spectral sensitivity peak (nm)	Optional detector peak-wavelength metadata used where the CCD workflow needs it.	Optional.

Resolution and pixel size are operational geometry, not only descriptive metadata. KOPR uses them with telescope focal length to estimate arcseconds per pixel and field of view. WStack also uses the active camera geometry when FITS metadata does not provide a reliable scale.

Enter native, unbinned geometry. Put the sensor's native resolution and physical pixel size in Settings. Image binning is read or selected per image workflow; do not permanently multiply pixel size or divide resolution merely because one dataset was acquired with binning.

Automatic compatibility: WCCD reconstructs native detector geometry from FITS source dimensions multiplied by FITS binning. An exact configured geometry is accepted silently. A single supported active-area match is also accepted silently; the camera-selection dialog is reserved for ambiguous or incompatible cases.

R76 identity and binning contract: camera identity is evaluated explicitly and observation binning is validated from the loaded FITS/workflow context. The same validated camera, native pixel pitch, focal length and observation binning feed the shared physical-scale resolver. Do not repair an observation-scale mismatch by changing the saved native camera geometry.

Eyepieces

Field	Meaning
Name	Descriptive eyepiece name.
Focal length (mm)	Eyepiece focal length used to calculate magnification with a normal telescope.
Apparent field	Apparent field of view in degrees, used to calculate the true visual field.

An eyepiece is required for visual observations unless Naked Eye is the active telescope. Eyepieces do not affect WStack or CCD image scale.

CCD photometry defaults

These values prefill and control the CCD photometry workflow. The production comet filter is the PA-adaptive ACF described in PA-adaptive ACF and Review dialog.

Setting	Role
Afρ max radius (km)	Upper physical radius used by the Afρ workflow.
ACF Starting radius	Initial circular aperture for the ACF ring sequence.
ACF Radius step	Increment between subsequent ring radii.
ACF Ignore radius	Inner radius left unfiltered by the PA-adaptive ring algorithm.
ACF Upper limit (sigma)	Robust-noise multiplier used for positive-only clipping.
Comet centroid max shift (px)	Maximum permitted movement from the clicked comet position.
ACF cut (% above average)	Legacy compatibility/rollback value. It is not converted into sigma and is not the control for `pa-adaptive-upper-v1`.
Max field of Vizier request (deg.)	Field-size control for catalogue requests.
Preferred corrections	Default correction label for the observation record.
Default filter	Default C/B/V/R/I/g′/r′/i′ selection.
Preferred mag. catalog	Default APASS or Gaia family. COBS output identifiers are case-sensitive implementation codes; R47 uses APASS Sloan `AG`/`AR`/`AI` and preserves established mixed-case Gaia codes.
Calculated comet pos.	Whether the calculated comet position is enabled by default.
Show Vizier URL request	Whether catalogue request URLs are printed in the terminal.

The PA window is fixed at 40° and is deliberately not exposed as a setting. Temporary values changed in Review comet ACF… affect only the current frozen measurement and are not saved back to global Settings.

Restore defaults restores the values defined by the current application build. General and CCD photometry defaults are committed only with the dialog-wide OK button.

Processing: FITS output format

Choose the representation used when KOPR writes new calibration and stacking products:

Scientific — float32, maximum precision
Compact — scaled int16, smaller files

The choice changes only the final representation on disk. Calibration, reprojection, stacking and photometry still use floating-point arrays. Existing FITS files are not converted.

The mode is read when an individual calibration or stacking task starts. Changing Settings during an active batch does not alter that batch. Older settings files without this field default to Scientific.

Compact can fall back per file. When safe int16 quantization cannot be kept small relative to local image noise, KOPR writes that product as Scientific rather than clipping or using a coarser hidden step. This is expected safety behaviour.

See Scientific and Compact FITS output for the encoding, FITS keywords, safety policy and validation procedure.

Active configuration in the main window

Saved items and active items are different concepts. Settings stores all available locations and instruments. The Configuration menu selects the rows currently used by processing.

Settings listsStore all locations and instruments

Configuration menuSelect one active row from each list

Current workflowReads the shared active context

Active selections persist. R56 restores Active Location, Active Telescope, Active Eyepiece and Active Camera from settings.dat when KOPR starts. Selecting a different row updates the persisted active context. Writes use a flushed temporary file followed by atomic replacement, so a normal save cannot leave a partially written settings file.

Workflow	Active values that matter most	Status-bar behaviour
Process Visual Obs.	Location, telescope and eyepiece; Naked Eye is supported.	Shows aperture, focal ratio/magnification and field where available.
Image Calibration & Stacking	Location, telescope and camera.	Shows all three active names. WStack refreshes immediately when selection changes.
Process CCD Obs.	Location, telescope and camera.	Shows camera, calculated pixel scale and field of view when focal length and geometry are complete.
Observation Planner	Location, including GMT offset.	Shows the active location.
Analyzer / Comparison	Analysis defaults and loaded observation data; instrument context is generally not used for plotting.	Shows the active location.

WStack settings are separate. The in-tab WStack settings… dialog stores an Astrometry.net API key and standalone focal-length/pixel-size fallbacks. Validated stack-dialog preferences use separate wstack/comet and wstack/stars QSettings namespaces. These preferences do not modify the main Configuration lists.

Back up and transfer configuration

Close KOPR, then copy the complete config-files/ directory. This preserves observer data, saved locations and instruments, active/default settings, custom comet elements, exclusions and analysis parameters.

cd /path/to/kopr
cp -a config-files "config-files-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d)"

To transfer settings to another complete KOPR source directory, close both copies of KOPR and copy the backed-up config-files/ directory into the destination. Keep a backup of the destination first.

Do not edit configuration files while KOPR is running. The application keeps a settings cache and writes active selections during operation; manual concurrent edits can be overwritten.

Continue

Main-window workflow · Image Calibration & Stacking · Process CCD Obs. · Troubleshooting