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.
Does APP work on the latest MacOS Catalina which was released yesterday?
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EDIT BY MABULA: SOLUTION:
Please study the macOS Catalina release notes to know what is happening here. Catalina has big changes regarding privacy and security. Many software packages will show this warning on Catalina now. Astro Pixel Processor will still run luckily, but you will need to tell MacOS that you accept software from identified developers.
Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy ->
Allow APPs downloaded from App Store and identified developers
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Delete the DMG file that you already downloaded, that one is now permanently blocked…
After you have changed the setting to Allow APPs downloaded from App Store and identified developers
Download the DMG again and then you should be able to install it.
If not, check again the Security & Privacy settings and say that you allow APP 😉
I think it will, at least I analyzed my computer with Go64 which is an app that checks which applications are 32-bit (you might want to run that to identify other software) and APP wasn't part of that analysis. Not 100% sure it indeed checked it correctly and my advice would be, in general, to wait until more information comes out from user experiences about the impact of Catalina in general. I'm waiting to update anyway as some software I use are still working on getting it to work for Catalina.
I decided to upgrade my 2015 MacBook to Catalina today and APP is happily processing at the moment. It has reached the NORMALIZE stage now and expect the rest to succeed as well.
Wouter
As expected the stacking of the image finished without any problems. So I think it is safe to conclude that APP works fine on MacOS Catalina.
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Wouter
Excellent! Didn't expect it not to, still I would advice to be cautious as other software isn't necessarily ready yet. Thanks for testing Wouter!
Seems relevant to this thread, so rather than start a new one, I hope you don't mind if I post here. Â Since upgrading to Catalina, APP will not open a directory past Documents without typing it in vs. double clicking. Â Also, I am unable to load my images to work on them as they do not show up in the folder even when I move them to the documents folder. Â Am I missing something?? Â Was working fine prior to The Catalina install. Â I even uninstalled and reinstalled APP to see if it would help. Â SO as of now I cannot use the software. Â I would appreciate any help in resolving this. Â Seems the OP is having no issues. Â I have also upgraded to the latest Beta and still the same outcome. Â Thank you for any help.
This probably is due to privacy settings of Catalina. Open the System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy and scroll down to Files and Folders. See if you can add PixInsight there and give it access to "Documents Folder".
That was it!! Â Thank you! Â Always learning something new....
Hi all @wornish, @vincent-mod, @wvreeven, @koradox ,
Thanks you all for bringing this to my attention. I have not tested myself yet with 10.15 Catalina, since I am about to release APP 1.075 stable any day now... and I am working on MacOS 10.14.6 right now.
After the 1.075 release, I will install and test support for Catalina. It's great to hear that everything seems to work fine though, thanks Wouter @wvreeven for your feedback and the fix with regard to Catalina's Security & Privacy settings.
Extra info: APP is a full 64bit application, the java runtime which is included in the APP installer is 64bit. APP can't properly run in a 32bit Java Runtime.
Kind regards,
Mabula
