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.
The image of M51 was taken during 3 nights with QHY10 on William-Optics GT71. The total integration time is 14400 seconds. Image processing was performed in the default setting of APP 1069. Adobe Photoshop cc was used for post-processing (noise reduction, curve and clipping). Hoping you will enjoy this as I do. Comments are welcome.
Thank you @oopfan. My exposure for this image is 600 seconds at gain of 0.5 for each sub. I used SGP pro for acquiring these subs while I was sleeping 😉. It still need some more nights for details and clean background, or re-do with a mono ccd in LRGB (if I could afford one 😊Â .
Instead of a mono CCD you might want to purchase a quality 2x focal extender. I ran the specs of your telescope and camera through a "CCD Suitability Calculator". The result is that you are under-sampling. This would explain why your image contains green stars.
Your telescope produces a diffraction disc that does not cover the entire Bayer matrix, so sometimes the disc falls almost entirely on the green filter. A 2x focal extender will solve it at the expense of reducing your field-of-view. You could also experiment with defocusing slightly.
The image of M51 was taken during 3 nights with QHY10 on William-Optics GT71. The total integration time is 14400 seconds. Image processing was performed in the default setting of APP 1069. Adobe Photoshop cc was used for post-processing (noise reduction, curve and clipping). Hoping you will enjoy this as I do. Comments are welcome.
Instead of a mono CCD you might want to purchase a quality 2x focal extender. I ran the specs of your telescope and camera through a "CCD Suitability Calculator". The result is that you are under-sampling. This would explain why your image contains green stars.
Your telescope produces a diffraction disc that does not cover the entire Bayer matrix, so sometimes the disc falls almost entirely on the green filter. A 2x focal extender will solve it at the expense of reducing your field-of-view. You could also experiment with defocusing slightly.
But I think using a 2.0 focal reducer is not a solution , because the F-Ratio will be twice as big, so ligth collection will be 4 times slower.
Probably best is to combine the GT71 with a camera with smaller pixels.
@kijja, did you debayer the data with AAD or did you use either drizzle or Bayer Drizzle integration here? Perhaps another integration method can reduce the artefacts on the stars 😉
Finally, another problem could be that the GT71 slighly has some Chromatic Aberration. If so, this can be solved with the Align Channels option in 2)
I am glad it worked! My first reaction is to solve problems at the telescope instead of applying image processing techniques. It's a lot of "voodoo" -- just kidding but it shows I need to learn more.
