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 have imaged the Cat's Eye Nebula in two consecutive nights using the same setup with a ZWO ASI294MC Pro one-shot color camera and the Optolong L-Extreme filter. If I stack the data from the first night, the results are as expected. The results from the second night show a strange color cast when I process them even when using only the standard settings and hitting "integrate" right way:
In the first night, I imaged at -10°C - the second night at -20°C for 300s per sub. Individual subs look like this:
Flats-, Darks- and Bias-Frames don't show a visible difference (except less noise @-20°C).
I have tried both, the Adaptive Airy Disk and the Ha-OIII color algorithm - both with the same strange result for the second night's data.
The normalization map files do differ significantly:
Other targets imaged the second night look fine and can be processed without problems.
Did someone see this behavior before and has an idea, how to deal with this?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Phillip
