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.
Can I please get confirmation of the status of support for ROWORDER in FITS files?
The files generated by my Vespera are BOTTOM-UP. They don't actually say so, so I've written code to add this keyword to my files (and fix some other minor non-conformities). However when I load such a file it still appears flipped in the image viewer:
M32 should appear on the bottom left of this image, but is in the top left instead. I'm using a trial license, running 2.0.0-beta13 on Apple silicon.
Thanks!Â
I'm not sure but is roworder a standard keyword for the Fits specification?
@vincent-mod It's not, but then again the FITS spec itself has very few keywords explicitly defined in it. Many of the commonly used keywords (even ones like RA / DEC) are defined in agency-specific dictionaries and not in the core spec.
I have searched here and found release notes saying ROWORDER is supported in APP, but yet it doesn't appear to work, hence my puzzlement.
Right, I'll ask Mabula about it. Please note that we're away to Astrofest in London (Mabula from 29-01 and me from 02-02), I hope I can get an answer before that for you.
Is there any news on this, please?
Not yet unfortunately, Mabula is unavailable at the moment. I'll make sure he gets to the posts when he is.
Hi Ray @raybellis,
The Fits roworder keyword is fully supported in the latest APP version.
The keyword actually indicates how data with a Bayer Color Filter Array should be debayered. It does not indicate that the image should be shown upside down I think. Depending on the ROWORDER being bottom-up or top-down an inverse Bayer pattern should be use to correctly debayer the data.
https://free-astro.org/index.php?title=Siril:FITS_orientation
Mabula
Hi @mabula-admin !
I believe it's strictly intended to address both. It happens that Siril always (and IMHO incorrectly) assumes bottom-up for display purposes, but other applications (e.g. PI) do the "right" thing both for Debayer and for display in the presence of the keyword.
As written in the portion of the FITS specification that was quoted in the above link:
we recommend that FITS writers order the pixels so that the first pixel in the FITS file (for each image plane) be the one that would be displayed in the lower-left corner
yet APP always loads and displays the image data such that the first pixel is displayed at top-left.
Ray
Hi Ray @raybellis,
Okay, I will check this behaviour 😉 and fix it then.
It would help me if you can share 1 or 2 of your light frames with me, simply for testing purposes.
Can you upload a couple of frames here:
https://upload.astropixelprocessor.com/
username: upload
password: upload
Please make a folder with your name and issue like: RayBellis-FITS-ROWORDER
and let me know once uploaded 😉 then it will be easy to correct.
Mabula
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@mabula-admin I've uploaded two files into RayBellis-VesperaFITS
img-0001.fits is the file straight off the scope (a Vaonis Vespera smart scope). It's bottom-up data (per FITS recommendations) but doesn't say so.
light-0001.fits is the same file with the FITS headers cleaned up for conformance.
thanks!
Ray
@mabula-admin I've uploaded two files into RayBellis-VesperaFITS
img-0001.fits is the file straight off the scope (a Vaonis Vespera smart scope). It's bottom-up data (per FITS recommendations) but doesn't say so.
light-0001.fits is the same file with the FITS headers cleaned up for conformance.
thanks!
Ray
Hi @raybellis,
I have fixed this now. FITS images with the ROWORDER tag BOTTOM-UP will also be displayed BOTTOM-UP. I have made sure that calibration is not affected, old calibration masters will still work properly. 2.0.0-beta14 will have this fix and I will probably release it within a couple of days 😉
Mabula
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Great, thanks!
Ray
