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.
When I calibrate my lights (all with gain 111) with darks, flats and darkflats (all of them with gain 111) the '2) Calibrate' process sometimes halts asking to select the correct masterflat for light frames. Version beta-24.
The dialog provides two items to chose from: one is the correct flat (at ISO/gain: 111.0), the other is a weird item: "MF-IG_0.0-E_0.0s-notAvailable-5496x3672.fits".
And searching through the astropixelprocessor directory I found other items like "BPM-notAvailable-5496x3672.fits" next to a proper BPM fits file.
Why is that?
Dear Gilles @museceleste,
that notAvailable indicates that there are flats without an instrument tag in the FITS header. You can fix those frames with the Batch Modify FIts metadata tool 😉 find the problem files and then create new ones with the correct Instrument name, the instrument name is the name of the camera and that name is controlled by your capture software/hardware.
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Thank you! Decidedly, APP has answers to almost every thing 😉
Didn't know about this batch tool. Now that I do, I have 3 more questions (sorry):
1. With regards to the APP dialog on the left hand side, I can't find the HDU1 'filter' nor the HDU1 'Session' tags in my flats (even in regular/normal flats created by my ASIxxx camera). Do these header tags exist? What should they contain? Does the tool massively replace only the non-blank (or filled) fields?
2. After opening/selecting several flats with the tool, is there a way to inspect their individual headers sequentially (e.g. by pressing a NEXT button?)
3. Is there a textbox into which I could enter a header tag content and let APP search for the corresponding file(s) that contain it? And would it support wildcards?
Tks
Gil
Hi Gilles @museceleste,
THe Batch Modify FIts tool is made for issue like this. Data created within 1 imaging session where the captured software or hardware did not have correct settings or was misconfigured by mistake.
So the frames that you load into tool should be from the same imaging session, then you will know that the header tags present or not will be the same, right?
The filter tag should be in the FITS HDU normally, most capture software will put that tag into the saved files. The session tag is not standard, APP will enter this in saved images that were loaded in multi-session mode with a session tag applied to those frames.
If you need to alter the instrument, enter a new name in the instrument field and the saved files will have that in the Fits HDU.
Mabula
