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.
Hi,Â
I usually use all calibration frames (Flats, Dark Flats, Darks, Bias) in pre-processing but I have a good CCD and image at -20C so in theory I shouldn't need to use Darks.
So tonight I tried using all of the above except Darks and ended up with hot pixels still showing after Calibration. I was using Average weighting and tried Windsor/Mad/Sigma rejection to no avail.
Then tried again with Darks and hot pixels are gone.
Any thoughts, do I need Darks to get rid of hot pixels?
BTW, I created a bad pixel map and it turned out looking like a grey image without the Darks - with the Darks the hot pixels show up fine. Is that expected?
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Any thoughts?
Apologies, the week has been very busy overhere.
So yes, the purpose of a dark is exactly that, to identify hot pixels. And amp-glow, if that would be the case. You can create a BPM with a proper, long dark and if you have no amp-glow, you can use just a BPM. Having this grey background is normal indeed.
Thanks Vincent, much appreciated.
No worries, thanks for your patience. 😉
