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'm trying to run the calibrate step on a two session, three filter project using flat darks.
I have flat darks at gain 76 and 1 second added to the red filter for all sessions and APP created a master flat dark: MDF-ISO_gain_76.0-exp_1.0s-50subs-ASI_Camera__2___ASCOM_-4656x3520-WC_1_3.0-avg-Red-all_sessions.fits
However, when it tries to process session 1's red flats I get an error about not having either a matching bias or master dark flat. The flats are 1 second at gain 76 so they ought to match. At least that's what I think is going on because the APP critical warning doesn't tell me what it is looking for but only that it can't find an appropriate master.
What makes this stranger is if I start fresh but still in multi-session/multi-filter modes and only add in session 1 & 2 lights, session 1 & 2 red flats, darks and red flat darks it seems to work without complaint.Â
I'd be happy to grab any relevant log info but it's not clear what is relevant as I don't see any errors or warnings in the console output just in that dialog that pops up when it gets to flat processing.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
You can disregard the error part of this. When I constructed my session directory I accidentally put the wrong light frames in session 2. That is what it was really complaining about, not the flats. If there is anything to be addressed it is that the error message was misleading.
Hi Linda, thanks for letting us know! Yes, it would be nice if the error was more specific in this case. I'll tag Mabula to see if that's possible; @mabula-admin
