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.
The simple way to use APP is great for a few images - you manually select lights, darks, bias etc.  Then it runs and makes calibrated frames, then let you stack them. It's great!
However, at the end of a good night I will have thousands of frames, which need to be calibrated, then the subs stacked, then the stacks assembled into a mosaic. Â
Essentially all of this could be automated, either with features in APP (which might already be there) or by scripting APP.
If I have the images organized into directories (one directory per panel), I am not sure how to tell APP to do this.  A simple way would be to able to select a whole directory tree for the lights, and then have APP put the calibrated frames into separate directories.  I have not figured out how to do this, is it possible?
So, the directory structure would look like
lights\ panel 1
     panel 2
     ....
darks
biasÂ
...
APP would then make
cals\ panel 1
    panel 2
....
The next step would be to stack each panel. Is there a way to have APP run over a set of directories and stack each directory?
More generally, this entire process has the potential to be scripted. Is that possible?
At the moment you then would need to select your working directory as the directory in which the calibrated files go and load in the lights from where you want.
We don't have scripting in APP no.
OK, even if you don't have scripting within APP, can you use other software to tell APP what to do?
No, APP is going to make it possible to watch a folder, so when data goes into that folder it automatically processes it. That's in the works because it was needed for iTelescope. Further possibilities may come in the future, I don't know of the planning on that though.
Did the 'watch folder' feature ever get implemented?
Not yet no, we've been focusing on other issues that had higher priority, but we are looking to get this working as well.
@nlondonlad, goign forward we will make this possible. We need to focus now first on other priorities like releasing 2.0.0 stable with load/save settings and projects 😉
