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.
Hello
I have been using my QSI640 CCD camera and APP for years.
My camera doesn't produce any kind of "blooming" in the stars, but now, using APP V1.083.2 MacOS, I have an artifact in some of the stars that is similar to "blooming" (only 3 or 4 stars in the whole field, and they are not brilliant stars).
I am using the same parameters with APP since years ago, and this is the first time this happen to me. My individual frames doesn't have this artifact, it only appears when I use the integration with APP.
Do you know what can be happening?
I attach an example
Regards
Jose
I have tried with old versions of APP (V.1.082 and V.1.079) and the star blooming also appears, so it is not related to the version of APP.
This is incredible, it is the first time that happens to me. I have already seen all my individual frames and the blooming is not there, I have no idea about what is happening.
And it only appears with 3 or 4 stars, look at my attached files:
Dear Jose,
That is a strange artefact indeed. It looks to me like something of a "glitch" with the sensor, blooming would be something all around the star. However, if it's not in the subs, then that is strange as well. Could you upload like 10 lights and your master calibration frames to our server for analysis?
First of all, thank you very much for your help.
I have already uploaded my masters, lights and the integration result in the folder "skysurvey-starBloomArtefact"
Definitely these artifacts are not a "glitch" of my CCD camera, because as I have already said, they are not in the individual frames, but what is more, I have processed another set of lights from the same night (29th-30th January 2022_Leo Triplet) and the result is completely clean, there are not any artifacts in that integration. This only happen with my Cone nebula (29th-30th January 2022_Cone nebula).
Looking forward to hearing from you
Regards
Jose
Yes indeed, like I said, it's how it looks like. But if it's not in the subs, that seems unlikely. I'll have a look at the data, please allow for up to a day.
Or just for up to an hour. 😉 I analyzed the data and it's caused by the BPM! This is really odd and I've notified Mabula immediately as, to my knowledge, a BPM should never have a negative influence on data. Thanks a lot for sharing! If you leave out the creation of the BPM it should work.
Yeeeees, you are right, it's the BPM, in fact if you change the BPM parameters, the size of the artifacts also changes.
Incredible, it's the first time I see this, and I have processed a lot of photos.
If you find out something else about this, let me know, please
Regards
Jose
Will do for sure!
You might get rid of it changing the automatic parameters with manual ones, like I think you already tried. Still, first time I've seen it. 😉
In the end I have processed my Cone nebula photo changing my usual BPM parameters (hot pixels kappa=4.0), and I haven't had any problem.
Anyway it is really strange because it is the only time I have had problems using the BPM in APP.
Here you have my result; I haven't touched the stars:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jachimeno/51964411145/in/dateposted-public/
Regards
Jose
Great and thanks for letting us know, we have the data and Mabula will look at it as to why it did that. Might be that we can improve the algorithm there, but it is indeed rare.
