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 not sure what is going on here, being new to the Mac doesn't help either. Beta 2 loaded fine previously, except it did seem to me that saving the tiff version appeared a lot brighter than the fits file. Hence the attempt to install Beta 4.
I am working with the Mac Mini, M1 chip. Monterey.
I download the ARM version into the downloads folder, where it appears as a .dmg file. I double click and a pop-up window appears, telling me to drag the file to the applications folder. I drag the file to the applications folder. It still appears as a .dmg file. I get an icon on the screen (not in the dock), which if double-clicked brings up the pop-up again asking me to drag the saved file to the applications folder. If I double-click the file, but from within the apps folder, again I get the drag into the applications folder (?).
Somehow I have managed to get it to run, but it's clearly not installed as the fixed screen icon remains and the dock doesn't retain the icon. On start-up it indicates that I have no hard disk space, whereas there is some 432GB available!
Any ideas where I, or it, are going wrong please?
Ian
@rawcoll Hi Ian,
When you write that you drag the icon to the Applications folder, where do you drag it to exactly? The APP installation popup contains two icons: one for APP and one called Applications. It is that Applications folder that you have to drag it to. Can you confirm that that's what you're doing?
HTH, Wouter
OK. First, I download the APP Beta 4 file, which appears in my downloads folder
If I double click I get this
I now drag the .dmg file to the blue folder, which puts it in to the applications folder
It is still a .dmg file. The astropixelprocessor application file is for Beta 2, which I re-installed in order to give me a working APP. Even without that, no application file was produced for Beta 4, IIRC.
Incidentally, I'm on the latest version of Monterey, v12.5.1
Regards, Ian
Oh, wait a minute. Is it the blue folder I should drag to the applications folder? If so, I've got it all wrong :<(. The trouble is, I've not managed to find any detail on the web about the process which shows this.
Ian
Edit. No, tried that and it didn't work either.
@rawcoll Hi Ian,
In the "Drag Astro Pixel Processor to the Applicatoins folder to install APP" popup you need to drag the APP icon (to the lower left of the popup) to the Applications folder (the blue folder to the upper right). You should then get a popup asking if you want to replace the existing application or keep both. It is up to you but ion general selecting to replace it is the best option since that will fully upgrade APP.
HTH, Wouter
Very many thanks Wouter, it's so easy when you know how 😀. Worked fine. Huh, it's about the only thing I didn't try, but worryingly, I must have done it correctly for the few previous apps I installed. I find it a little odd that it needs to be a two-stage process anyway, why can't the OS just do it without my intervention? Can't say I managed to find a description of what is needed to be done, even on the Apple website.
Anyway, thanks again.
Ian
