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.
New to APP but after watching Sara Wager's video tutorials and some help from an earlier post have managed to create master flats and bias frames and a BPM. Have also managed to create a fully integrated stack of LRGB data. The data I've used comprises of only 6-8 x 300sec exps for each filter with a number of aircraft trails on most of the filters. Is it unrealistic to expect to minimise the trails with so few subs or are there specific settings I can look at? So far I've really just been following Sara's tutorials as I don't have much understanding at this stage of many of the parameters!
My set up is : Takahashi 106ed, mono Atik 460ex on NEQ6. Lacerta MGEN stand alone guider. Artemis capture software and synscan control of mount.
I think I've been able to resolve this myself by reading other posts. In integration have changed my outlier rejection to LN Mad sigma clip (maybe I'll try Winsor next time?) with Kappa 2.5 and 2 iterations. Whilst the trails haven't disappeared they have been significantly minimised.
Pam
You could also take out the frames that have the trails, but otherwise you likely need more aggressive clipping indeed. Probably not the best overall though, removing the aircraft trails first is probably better so you can go easier on the clipping. However, in this case you seem to have them in too many frames, that's a tough spot for taking photo's. 🙁
Yes it's unusual to have so many aircraft trails especially on 300 sec subs and on this occasion unfortunately only had a low number of them . Anyway it's provided a reason to experiment a bit! Initially I used sigma clip with kappa 3 and iteration 1 - would that be appropriate with a small number of lights without aircraft trails? Still trying to understand the various options there are in integration!
Thanks for the reply.
Pam
Yes, that should be enough for lights without trails. Or, when you have a good BPM and other calibration frames, you might even go without rejection to see if that's nicer.
No problem. 🙂 Good luck.
Thanks Vincent. Much appreciated.
Pam
