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.
Hello all,
I just happened to look at the bad pixel map for my ASI183MM-Pro camera.
If you're familiar with the camera, it has a very visible amp-glow pattern, including a big sunrise/starburst on the right side, with a ray that extends most of the way across the image.
Lo and behold, my BPM recognizably displays that pattern. That's incorrect, yes? Those aren't truly hot or cold pixels, they're just ones that are way brighter than the surrounding due to amp glow. This would seem to explain why I often have trouble calibrating out the last traces of the glow, and that long horizontal line is a particular bear!
What's your advice? Create a new BPM from my flat-darks, or from a bunch of bias frames? (I normally use the former rather than the latter.)
What are the best practices for creating APP BPMs?
Attached is a screenshot of the BPM in APP, it looks the same regardless of whether I select "image" or "linear" or anything else, and whether or not I click the "stretch" checkbox. I can upload the FITS if anyone wants to see that for some reason. For comparison, a SS of a stretched dark is below that.Â
TIA,
rw
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Well first of all, wow.. that is some amp-glow indeed. Using darks gets rid of that for you? Did you make sure the "reduce amp-glow" setting is on in the calibrate-tab?
In general, a BPM can be made using flats (if you have cold pixels) and darks (long exposed dark is nice, at least 300 seconds). This should account for most of the bad pixels and work for a long time (depending on how much your sensor is used). You can at this stage play around with the kappa values, increasing it will have less pixels being recognised as hot. Maybe this can reduce that amp-glow bit. I haven't seen examples that this is particularly bad to have in a BPM though, I will try to find other examples.
@vincent-mod
Thanks for the quick reply, Vincent. Yeah, stretching the dark frame really brings out the WOW for that sensor, doesn't it? That one was long exposures at a maxed-out gain for the camera, so it's pretty much worst-case.
It does calibrate out, at least almost all, usually. I do use the pedestal when I'm calibrating, which helps a lot. Or did you mean some option when I'm actually creating the BPM? But every once in a while I do see traces of the glow still there, and it's primarily the parts I see in the BPM.
I will try running a few iterations of making a BPM with various kappa values. I should also try processing an image or two with an without my current (weird) BPM, just to establish whether that's the problem.
That might be nice to know when you get those results back. If it doesn't help, I'll investigate further as well.
