2026-10-09 APP 2.0.0-beta48 has been released !
This is mainly a bug fix release for the reported bugs in beta47. In addition it has a significant User Interface performance improvement noticable when you need to process 1000s of images in APP.
2026-10-03 APP 2.0.0-beta47 has been released !
This is a very big release... many code optimizations/rewrites, many parts of APP are much faster and more precise, especially star analysis and registration are much faster ! Big mosaics will go much faster 🙂
And we introduce a new preview filter, which includes the new Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch and a General Levels Stretch, this has been long over due. The old preview filter (the panel on the right side to stretch and preview your data) has not been updated for a couple of years and it is a critical part of any APP session.
Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch or ADSS is a much more intuitive stretch algorithm. It is also color preserving (which is a great new addition in itself ! ) which means that the highlights are no longer bleached, color is maintained from the linear data while stretching. You can simply stretch your data using the sky background level and signal width sliders which work much easier and more intuitive. You no longer need to fiddle with the old complicated sliders with zoom buttons. All the zoom buttons for the sliders are made redundant. And you can enter slider values in the slider value fields yourself. I will make a youtube video in the coming days to explain and fully introduce ADSS. Once the video is ready, it will be highlighted on the forum.
RGB Combine upgrade !. The RGB Combine Tool has been rewritten mostly. The tool is faster and easier to use and most importantly, the Luminance slider to inject a luminance channel or channels into the RGB composite is now working correctly. It no longer bleaches the RGB colors. Combined with the new ADSS preview, you will get much better and easier great composites with great color! I will also explain this in a new youtube video.
Hi - couple of questions on this please.
First, if I right click on the subs list, I have the choice to order from "worst to best" or by "quality". Not sure what the difference is here? essentially I usually decide which to keep and delete out the others.
Second, if I have different session, eg after a meridian flip, the second session quality scores are often quite different to the first session. This seems to occur with most software of this type, and I think may be the result of different framing etc - certainly the timing isn't significantly different, and the focus etc is all the same. So I like to select the best subs from each session, and delete the remainder.
In APP, when all the lights are loaded, is it possible to group them somehow so I can delete out the worst subs from each session?
Alternatively, is there a way to group them and then stack say the best 95% from each group?
Hope that makes sense.
Tom C
Couple of follow on observations on this - when I sort from "best to worst" the list appears to sort by quality - so looks like its the same thing.
However, the reference frame chosen by APP is not the one with the highest score which seems odd. Moreover, this frame is actually quite poor quality and doesn't seem to merit the score it has been given. The ones either side of it seem decidedly better.
Oddly, the frame which APP has choses for reference is actually the one that deep Sky Stacker gives the lowest score!! this really doesn't seem quite right!
Below is a screen shot of the list showing the reference sub. and below that a screen shot of the next worst sub... which looks much better!Â
Any ideas??
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