Apr 9 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta40 will be released in 24 hours !
It has a major performance boost of 30-50% over 2.0.0-beta39 from calibration to integration, for mosaics even faster! We extensively optimized many critical parts of APP. All has been tested to guarantee correct optimizations. Drizzle and image resampling is much faster for instance, those modules have been completely rewritten. Much less memory usage. LNC 2.0 will be released which works much better and faster than LNC in it's current state. Improved Outlier Rejection with LN 2.0 rejection. macOS CMD+A works now in file chooser ! And more, all will be added to the release notes in the coming hours...
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
Hi,
I'm having difficulty in using 1.063 vs 1.062 - so much so that I reverted to 1.062.
Calibration under both 1.062 and 1.063, using the same Flats, DarkFlats, Bias, Darks and Lights
Flats 20
DarkFlats 20
Bias 20
Darks 10
All using the same gain (I know that's not a requirement). I select Median for all my calibration frames. Under BadPixelMap I choose a hot pixels kappa of 4.0 and cold pixels % 25.
Under 1.062: My BPM looks normal (for what I'm used to). Find this attached as AA1062_BPM1.png
Now, I load up 1.063 and put in all the same values and files and I end up with the attached BPM screenshot: AA1063_BPM1.png
The difference: APP 1.062 has just over 3.4% bad pixels, APP 1.063 is over 99.9% bad pixels.
Here is the output when it is processing the Flats, so it's something to do with that I assume (all 20 entries would be this: NAN - Not a Number):
16:24:29 - GENERAL IMAGE LOADER: loading frame /nvme/Astronomy/Captures/ASI294MC/CALIBRATION/FLATS_CLS-CCD/17_43_09/FLATS_CLS-CCD_00009.fits
16:24:31 - 2) CALIBRATE: Adaptive Data Pedestal: disabled
16:24:51 - GENERAL IMAGE LOADER: frame /nvme/Astronomy/Captures/ASI294MC/CALIBRATION/FLATS_CLS-CCD/17_43_09/FLATS_CLS-CCD_00009.fits was loaded successfully
16:24:51 - 2) CALIBRATE: loaded flat 9 of 20 flats, starting analysis...
16:24:51 - 2) CALIBRATE: writing flat 9 of 20 to flat file mapping...
16:24:52 - 2) CALIBRATE: got analytical results of 9 of 20 flats.
16:24:52 - 2) CALIBRATE: location of flat 0 dispersion of flat NAN
16:24:52 - 2) CALIBRATE: location of flat 0 dispersion of flat NAN
16:24:52 - 2) CALIBRATE: location of flat 0 dispersion of flat NAN
What am I doing wrong?
For the BPM, this is created from Flats and Darks. I was concentrating on my Flats (because Darks are easy, right?) but it turns out my Darks were full of noise. FULL. This was an ASI294MC Pro cooled camera so that shouldn't have been right. At the moment I'm not sure where the problem is, but I've 5 good frames, then the noise increases - as if the temperature is increasing. The reported temperature (in SharpCap 3.1 and 3.2 Beta) maintains a nice -5C (that I set) however I don't believe it is correct. Trying again. Will report on my findings. But it is my Darks that were the issue here.
Hi @itarchitectkev,
Thank you for reporting this.
I am aware of a problem with creating the Bad Pixel Map with bad column detection ON. For you sensor, I think it's safe to turn this off. Can you try that and let me know it the BPM looks good again?
This particular problem has been fixed in the past few days and I will release a new version soon with this fix. See first bullet at
Is that flat analysis from calibration of the flats with that wrongly created BPM ?
Kind regards,
Mabula
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Thanks Mabula, that one option disabled has allowed me get a good BPM now. I've just done a quick test though so will probably look at tuning and improving some options tomorrow. I now have about 1000 Dark Frames collected using a variety of techniques that I can delete it seems, (though I think there is a battle - separate to this with those, but that's not your problem!).
