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've had an issue with flats since late last year. Up until then, they were calibrating fine. I've never used dark flats as haven't needed to. I have tried them to calibrate the flats, but that didn't work either. Im not sure what's changed but it's driving me mad and has ruined a lot of imaging time. As you can see, it's highly typical, the bunnies are over the neb 🤦♀️I run the latest version of APP, I keep settings the same (obviously apart from exposure) as my lights. I try to match equal amount of flats to lights. When I load all my data in and click 'l-calibrated', the bunnies stay as they are. If its not a setting in APP (because I've changed nothing) perhaps a camera issue. Whatever it is, it's getting me down. I use an Altair 269c TEC. Captures and cools absolutely fine, so no issues there. I use SC for capture and histogram at 30%. Attached is one of my flats, baxkground neutralised, which I think looks fine. Looks like how a my others have previous to the issues. Need some other ideas if anyone has any please. Thank you
You don't need to keep the same setting as your lights for flats, offset I would keep the same, but iso/gain can be changed. For gain you can lower it to maximize the dynamic range of the sensor and then exposing the flats until the peak in the linear (!) histogram reaches about 50-80% of the range (30% is low and you seem to be clipping (maybe) on the left (best to check with stretching off), as long as it's not clipping on the right, you can expose for longer. Bias or darkflats that match the settings of the flats are then required, I'd advice darkflats as some sensors misbehave when taking the shortest amount of exposure for bias. About 20 flats is fine as well.
When you have the masterflat and masterdark you can load in a light, go to the preview filter (on top) and select "l-calibrated" to see if the flat is applied, you should then also see the tag "MF" in the filename for the light below in the list.
