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.
So Ive been playing around with data from my OIII filter and when I look at a single calibrated light, everything looks normal, but then when I integrate, I get what looks like light pollution with bad vignetting. Im not sure what Im doing wrong. Any ideas would be helpful.
the first one is a single calibrated image and the second is a stack of 30 x 180 sec lights with 3.5 OIII filter and 33 flats and dark flats with a master dark and a BPM
@thextra10th Hi Zachary. Did you shoot de flats and dark flats at the same gain, offset, temperature and exposure time? Did you shoot the darks for the master dark at the same gain, offset, temperature and exposure time as the lights? What does the integration look like if you do not apply the flats, i.e. only apply the master dark and BPM? What version of APP are you using? If 1.082 or before, can you enable 32 bit masters in tab 2 and see if that helps?
@wvreeven. Yes, the flats and dark flats were all done at the same gain, offset, and exposure time. I didn’t cool the camera to the same temperature as I didn’t think that mattered for flats. The Darks were also done at the same temp, gain, and offsets. I have not tried integrating without flats, I’ll do that today. I will check my version to see,
Thanks
@thextra10th Thanks for the info. The temperature for the flats indeed doesn’t matter so it looks like you did this right. Do your flats for other filters work well? Any differences between taking the OIII flats and the other flats like a different light source or a different location where you took them?
@wvreeven here is the integration without flats, it seems slightly better.... the other filters all seem fine. I used the same light source, and location for the flats. in this last go around I did try using a t-shirt between the light panel (using the pegasus astro light panel) and scope, but didn't seem to help. the master flat doesn't look great in my opinion, so I'm thinking that is the root problem.
@thextra10th That indeed does look better. What light source do you use for the flats? Perhaps it is not compatible with the OIII filter pass band? Or maybe the OIII filter lets pass through IR radiation from the light source that gets picked up by the sensor?
@wvreevenim Im using a Pegasus Astro flat panel for my light source. I'm currently running an integration of trying 3 sec flats and dark flats even though it was only about 20-30% on the histogram but the overall flat looked a little better. Its very interesting that this one filter doesn't behave like the others. Im also using the ZWO 294MM at 2x2 binning
@thextra10th You probably know but make sure that all lights, darks, flats, dark flats etc have the same binning. Combining 1x1 and 2x2 binning will not work.
Apart from that, fingers crossed that the new flats work!
@wvreeven yeah, all are matching and no luck with the new flats. I'll need to look at other OIII data, maybe it was just a bad night.....
