Mar 28 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta40 will be released in 7 days.
It did take a long time to have the work finished on this and it will have a major performance boost of 30-50% over 2.0.0-beta39 from calibration to integration. We extensively optimized many critical parts of APP. All has been tested to guarantee correct optimizations. Drizzle and image resampling is much faster for instance, those modules have been completely rewritten. Much less memory usage. LNC 2.0 will be released which works much better and faster than LNC in it's current state. And more, all will be added to the release notes in the coming weeks...
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
I think I like the software, but it doesn't seem to be working coorectly for me just yet. It may be something I am doing, of course.
I loaded up some Lights, Bias, Darks and Flats from a single camera on a recent image. I followed (or think I followed) the process shown on Sara Wager's videos (I've also watched your 50+ minute video). The Bad Pixel Map that was created looked very odd indeed. Furthermore, it seems that a Master Flat file was not created and certainly the image files in the bottom window did not show that a Flat (F) was applied (as it was in Sara's video). I attach a screenshot showing the odd BPM and the 'Lights with no F'. I wondered if there might be something wrong with my calibration frames, so I tried again with frames from a different camera. However, I got an identical result.
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your feedback.
The bad pixel map "hot pixels kappa" value probably was a bit too low when you created the bad pixel map. I agree it doesn't look very good. Try to increase the hot kappa value a bit.
Regarding the flat calibration, if you load the flats together with a masterbias or master flatdark (of the same iso or gain+offfset as the flat frames) and you create the masterflat, then this masterflat really should work on your light frames.
If you are willing, I'll be most happy to help you out. For instance, if you were to send me 5 lights, 5 darks, 5 bias and 5 flats I could show you how it's done in APP or possibly find the problem that you might encounter here?
I could even make a small video showing you how to do it in APP?
Kind regards,
Mabula
Mabula was able to assist. Of course, I was doing a couple of things the wrong way round. You need flat frames to generate a good BPM and (as he suggested) a boost to teh kappa setting helped.
It is all sorted now and it looks like the program is producing very good integrated stacks. Certainly better than the ones I am getting from my 3.2" resolution rig in PI.
Incidentally, Mabula also went 'above and beyond' and produced a short video with some of my subs to show me exactly how I should be using the program. It is now posted on the site - https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/data-calibration-and-integration-the-pelican-nebula/
Thank you Steve, I was really happy to assist 😉
Cheers,
Mabula
