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.
Started my 30 day trail for APP recently and so I've been playing around with a bunch of different features. One feature I like in particular is the Bad Pixel Map. Thinking through the process though is there any reason that the camera needs to be attached to its optics? I tried just using a white computer screen and placed my DSLR up against the screen to capture the flats. Seems like the generated bad pixel map is working, but I was just curious if there's something I'm missing as to why taking the flats (for the purpose of a bad pixel map) would need the optics since its just looking for hot and cold pixels.
Side question, about how long of an exposure would you recommend for dark frames? Tried 30s and it seems okay but not apposed to making a new make using longer exposures.
Thanks!
Hi Blair
Your darks must be the same iso, time(seconds - minutes), temperature, as the lights. At least you can do these while packing up your gear for the night.
Flats are to see dust bunnies, vignetting and other imperfections in the complete optical train. Must be done at same focus as lights right after imaging and before darks especialy on a DSLR as you might move the focus accidentaly when you cover the lens for the darks.
https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/how-to-create-a-bad-pixel-map-bpm-by-sara-wager/
Regards
teve
@solo05 Thanks for the response. Yes for calibrating my lights I'm aware the darks need to have the same settings and for flats to calibrate lights they of course need to be with the same optics, focus, etc.
I'm specifically interested for only generating a Bad Pixel Map, not in calibrating Lights. If you're only trying to find the bad pixels why would the optics matter?
It wouldn’t indeed. Unless you have cold pixels, those show up in flats, but modern sensors don’t seem to have those a lot anymore. So purely for the BPM you can use a long dark (longer is noisier and better for that).
