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 have four sets of images to process. The first three went very well. No issues. Using, what I believe are the same settings, this last set is very grainy and all the stars have halos. Looks terrible. Am I missing a setting somewhere. I have gone through it three or four times, thing I hit something I shouldn't have but nothing is jumping out at me. Â
this integration is 59 3 minute subs of the pelican. Taken with 80mm stellarvue scope and ASI 294mc Pro.
I have attached a jpg of what I'm seeing immediately after integration.
This is very strange. I don't think my previous reply went through. I had five sets of data to process. All using the same calibration frames. The first three were fine. no issues. It was this one that produced the worse. This morning I processed the final set and did not have the same artifacts but had different artifacts are stars and brighter portions of the nebula. Â
I'm really wondering if I tweaked a setting that is being retained and I should just reset. Is there a way to reset all the settings back to "factory default" and I try again?
Well, as APP doesn't have stored settings, just the "factory settings" it's already there each time you start. Saving the settings will come in a future update, but in your case that's not the problem. This must be in the data, I can have a look if you want. You can share you calibration masters and some problematic subs to me on the APP server, login/password: appuser Please create a directory with your name on it and add it there. Thanks!
I have four sets of images to process. The first three went very well. No issues. Using, what I believe are the same settings, this last set is very grainy and all the stars have halos. Looks terrible. Am I missing a setting somewhere. I have gone through it three or four times, thing I hit something I shouldn't have but nothing is jumping out at me. Â
this integration is 59 3 minute subs of the pelican. Taken with 80mm stellarvue scope and ASI 294mc Pro.
I have attached a jpg of what I'm seeing immediately after integration.
That looks very odd... it would be very helpfull if Vincent and me could have a look at this dataset.
Without looking, my biggest suspicion would be that there is something happening with your star shapes, diffractions and the use of Winsor Sigma Clipping. Winsor Clipping is known for artefacts around star borders, and it seems this is happening here, only very extreme.... it looks really odd.
My sincere apologies for the very late reply.  You mentioned the winsor sigma clip. That is exactly what I selected. I went back and processed again but this time did the straight sigma clip and it turned out fine. I'm not not to include all the source, that was going to be a massive upload and I had no easy place to put it. I have attached the new image after selecting sigma clip.
