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.
Hi,
Yesterday I used my new ALTAIR Hypercam 183C for the first time (SONY IMX183C sensor). I took 40 frames à 120sec with my 8" F/4 Newton on NGC 925. After that 25 Flats, 20 darks and 100 Bias.
Since the FITS files from SG Pro are with RGGB Bayer pattern, I enabled "Force CFA". But then a few questions came up:
1) When creating Master Darks and Master Bias, do I have to enable "Force CFA"? As far a I know Master Dark and Bias Frames should be subtracted from the lights before the bayer pattern is applied to the lights (at least that was the workflow in the software 'Fitswork').
2) When creating Master Flat, I do have to enable "Force CFA" otherwise it comes later - when dividing through the Flats - to a "number of channels do not match" error, right?
3) I have oversampled data (1px ~ 0,6") - can I do something to improve my result (e.g. Bayer Drizzle?)
Thanks, Stephan
Hi Stephan,
When I process images from my OSC camera, I select force CFA for everything, and also set the Bayer pattern in the drop down. My camera uses the Panasonic chip which has a different pattern than the default. Employing "set it and forget about it" for the CFA has worked quite well for me.
Hi Stephan,
1)Yes, you should enable force CFA and set the correct CFA pattern, when you create the calibration frames. The reason being, it will enable APP to set this information into the metadata of the masterframes. The calibration frames will then be recognised as CFA master frames. So the master frames themselves are CFA frames and calibration of your lights will only be done on the cfa pixels like it should 😉 Debayering of your calibrated cfa pixels in your lights will then be done automatically after calibration like it should as well.
2)Yes, if you don't indicate it's cfa data, the assumption will be that the flats are monochrome. And you can't do this on auto, since the application should then guess the cfa pattern. Unfortunately, SGP doesn't supply the cfa info in the fits frames metadata (yet?), otherwise I could directly use it ;-).
3) Sure, but over-sampling is only one of the requirements to benefit from drizzle. You would need dithering and plenty of data as well. Drizzle is a strong noise injector so it's not always to be advised. In 6) you can set the integration to drizzle or bayer drizzle. In case of bayer drizzle, leave the scale at 1.0 and use drizzle drops of 2-3 pixels with a tophat kernel 😉 . 2x drizzle is setting the scale to 2x and using droplets of 0.5 - 1 pixel. Smaller droplets means sharper results, more noise. Drizzle is always about sharpness versus noise.
Kind regards,
Mabula
Thank you both, for your answers. Since I dither with SGPro and go for many short-integrated frames, and do have oversampled data, I'll try dither the next time. 🙂
Thanks, Stephan
