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.
I'm new to APP so please excuse the very basic question.
Having loaded the light frames, dark master, bias master and flat master and going to the calibration tab apart from assigning the masters to the lights do I need to click any other buttons, apart from options like hot pixel correction, to move to the next stage. I don't see a button, unless I missed it- that says calibrate. I'm hoping that calibrate just happens having assigned the correct masters when moving to the next stage of the processing.
Please confirm.
Thanks
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@contactdeepskyconnect-uk "Create Masters & assign to Lights" will calibrate and apply to the lights.
@contactdeepskyconnect-uk "Create Masters & assign to Lights" will calibrate and apply to the lights.
Mark
You will find a workflow that works for you, but most of the time I just load my lights and masters and then go to tab 5 and hit the "normalize lights" button. The I look at the analytical graph and decide whether to delete any subs and then go straight to "integrate" at the bottom of tab 6. This is assuming I'm not doing a mosaic or a comet or whatever. APP works very well with the default settings in most (not all) cases.
By the way - you don't have to load a master bias if you have a master flat, the bias is only used to create the master flat. If you are making your master flat that's a different story, but even then I would suggest that using darkflats intead of bias is to be preferred.
JC
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