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.
Happy easter!
Last week I tested my 'galaxy setup'. I ran into some issues so I only have Red and Green channel monochrome data. However during stacking something strange happened, it also happened a while back with other data. But for some reason in the Red channel it looks like te outlier rejection doesn't fully work. Or are there just too many satellite trails to remove? I have 25 red files of which 7 have satellite trails through the center. In the green channel outlier rejection is fine. I noticed it a while back also in the red channel. What am I doing wrong or what could the problem be? I have used APP since the beginning and never had these problems before.
I calibrated the frames with MD and BPM. No flats because I was only testing my image train for now.
Attached the R and G stacks and the APP log file.
Cheers,
Michel
Michel
I've seen this too, but only at long focal lengths. A bright satellite trail at long focal lengths can be several pixels wide. If using average (vs median) stacking this can be challenging for APP's outlier rejection when using the default settings, at least under some circumstances. It can be a bit startling if you have just made the switch from short to long focal length.
I think you have three options.
- Switch to median stacking. Not recomended if you have more than 20 frames as it will cost you some bit depth. But might be worth a try - you might be happy with the resulting image.
- Go through the frames one by one and delete only the ones with strong satellite trails. That's what I have usually done. Can be tedious but it will work.
- Try different settings for kappa low and kappa high in the Outlier Rejection section on the Integrate tab. There is some advice in the tooltips for these settings. You will need to be cautious or you risk losing the beautiful streaming tail you have captured.
Good luck
JC
@connor231 thank you John for the options. I will look into this. I indeed noticed it, thinking about it, when switching from 520mm FL to 749mm (taking out the reducer from my main scope) but in a lesser degree. Last week I switched to 1480mm (C9.25 with 0.63x reducer) and I noticed it being worse.
Last time I did delete all te images with satellite trails, using Blink in PI (a process that would be very helpfull in APP as well).
thanks again
Hi Michel,
@michel82, i think the best option would be to manually set the outlier rejection settings as John @connor231 indicates. Did you try that as well? We have on our list to further improve this behaviour in APP, because we are aware that sometimes residual satellite stripes stay visible expecially at the longer focal lengths. We want to further improve these algorithms for sure.
Mabula
@mabula-admin yes I tried and it worked. Used the average setting and set the kappa’ to 2 and 4. This worked good enough for the mono images, because after combining them the residual trails were gone👍🏻
thanks!
