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,
I think I found a new bug in one of the latest versions, and I went back to Beta 14 and the bug is gone.
But I could help more easly track down which version and test if I could have multiple versions installed. However, when I install a different version in a different directory, it appears only the latest runs. The others, if I double click on them (directly on the application executable, or via the desktop link that I rename to each version) nothing happens. Is there a way to install and have available 2 or 3 of the beta versions so I can help determine which version has the issue?
BTW, here is the bug: I get these pure red, green, and blue dots when stacking the western veil with bias and flats:
I've never seen this before and successfully stacked this about a month ago with some earlier version (Not sure which beta). I've only tested three versions of APP to date:
Beta 14: No bug
Beta 21: Bug
Beta 22: Bug
I shoot Alt/Az so there is field rotation in the lights, so that is one reason why the various pure color RGB pixels are shifting location, but I suspect each calibrated light has some number of these pixels at the same camera location (as if they are uncorrected Hot pixels). That's just a guess at this point.
Perhaps I can make it happen with a very small number of files that I can upload, but right now I'm using Beta 14 so I can complete this project of a Veil mosiac, but if I could run B14 and B22, it would be easier to run tests while still using the Beta 14 that works for me. I could possibly trim down the test to a small set of files I can send to you if you want to replicate it.
This may be related to a change in the calibration actually, can you check if this still happens when switching on cosmic noise/noise reducer in analyse stars (tab 3)? Unlikely this is the case though as it's mainly for registration which does work for you.
edit: installing multiple versions is not advised indeed, you could use a virtual machine or second computer to do so.
@vincent-mod
That didn't fix it, but I can just integrate 3 files without any biases or flats and see them. They appear to be some bot pixels that didn't show up in my bias frames (I checked) and the Beta 14 got rid of them, but Beta 21 and 22 don't. Also, I tried SIRIL just to make sure I'm not seeing things and it gets rid of them too.
Perhaps there is a setting for hot pixels that got set incorrectly or I need to change?
My hot pixel kappa is 3.0 and cold pixels % is 10.
So my guess is the hot pixel detection isn't working.
Here are three lights with the hot pixels attached. There is a red pixel (actually a 3x3 pixel area) around 2422x1698 and a green one around 2373x1876
What may help you, especially if the hot pixels are not in the bias (also not in your darks?) is to make a long exposed, warm (so no cooled sensor) dark and use that to create the BPM. Using this BPM then in future data analysis (loading it in instead of recreating it each time) may help get rid of them. You can also check if lowering the kappa to 2.5 or 2 helps.
Good evening,
I also had the same problem with the latest Beta 22 and Beta 21. I realized there must be a bug in the release, since It had never happened before with previous versions.
Also tried hot pixel removal and cold pixel removal no to avail. Also using darks, flats, dark flats and BPM in the processing.
Ok, I'll inform Mabula as well, he is on a vacation now so that will take some time.
@camarieu Could you also try the suggestion I made a few posts above by creating a better BPM? If you and @readyjetty are creating a mosaic then rejection is switched off, so in that case you need to switch off the automatic outlier rejection and select outlier parameters manually.
@vincent-mod
I’ll reload Beta 22 and try it soon. I wasn’t doing a mosaic at the time, I was only stacking the individual sub-panels for an eventual mosaic.
Ok, I will investigate with an older beta as well if it still happens and with your data, just to see if it is indeed a bug.
@vincent-mod
OK, I tried stacking in Beta 22 with Outlier Rejection On in the integration phase with the default Kappa Low of 6.0 and Kappa high of 3.0. It eliminated the errors. The default for that option was off so I had never messed with it before now.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions!
Excellent, I hope that was the issue indeed
