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 may have found another bug. Â
Today I was stacking some subs for a mosaic. So I stacked all my Blues and used Bias, Dark, Flats and a Bad Pixel Map (B D F BPM). Once the integration is complete my light frames are accompanied by the following codes: B D F BPM CA STAR REG NORM. All is perfectly normal so far. Now I am going to stack teh next set of subs. I am using the same Bias, Darks and BPM masters. So I go back to the 'LOAD' tab. I hit 'all - clean - all' next to 'light' to clear out all my light subs. Then I remove the old flat master and the previous integration, so that I only have a BPM, a master dark and a master bias. I add my new set of lights, and then load the new master flat. At this point, my lights all now read 'B D F BPM STAR NORM'. I cannot trust this, obviously. So now what I have to do is 'all - clean - all' for the lights and reload them. All is now good with just 'B D F BPM' next to my light frames.Â
If I load all the masters before loading all the light frames, then this 'B D F BPM STAR NORM' malarkey doesn't happen. So I can make it all work as it should. However, it would be nice not to have this potential 'gotcha' in the system.
I may have found another bug. Â
Today I was stacking some subs for a mosaic. So I stacked all my Blues and used Bias, Dark, Flats and a Bad Pixel Map (B D F BPM). Once the integration is complete my light frames are accompanied by the following codes: B D F BPM CA STAR REG NORM. All is perfectly normal so far. Now I am going to stack teh next set of subs. I am using the same Bias, Darks and BPM masters. So I go back to the 'LOAD' tab. I hit 'all - clean - all' next to 'light' to clear out all my light subs. Then I remove the old flat master and the previous integration, so that I only have a BPM, a master dark and a master bias. I add my new set of lights, and then load the new master flat. At this point, my lights all now read 'B D F BPM STAR NORM'. I cannot trust this, obviously. So now what I have to do is 'all - clean - all' for the lights and reload them. All is now good with just 'B D F BPM' next to my light frames.Â
If I load all the masters before loading all the light frames, then this 'B D F BPM STAR NORM' malarkey doesn't happen. So I can make it all work as it should. However, it would be nice not to have this potential 'gotcha' in the system.
Thanks again, I have been fixing several issues like this in the upcoming version 1.057.
Indeed, it has to do with backing up processing details, restoring and cleaning up the data. To do be sure, I'll check this behaviour first thing tomorrow, so I am sure it's fixed in the next release.
Cheers,
Mabula
After you have them all loaded, one idea might be to ignore the suffixes and just do calibration like you normally would have to do first anyway, and you should see that they have been updated to just CA?
I may have found another bug. Â
Today I was stacking some subs for a mosaic. So I stacked all my Blues and used Bias, Dark, Flats and a Bad Pixel Map (B D F BPM). Once the integration is complete my light frames are accompanied by the following codes: B D F BPM CA STAR REG NORM. All is perfectly normal so far. Now I am going to stack teh next set of subs. I am using the same Bias, Darks and BPM masters. So I go back to the 'LOAD' tab. I hit 'all - clean - all' next to 'light' to clear out all my light subs. Then I remove the old flat master and the previous integration, so that I only have a BPM, a master dark and a master bias. I add my new set of lights, and then load the new master flat. At this point, my lights all now read 'B D F BPM STAR NORM'. I cannot trust this, obviously. So now what I have to do is 'all - clean - all' for the lights and reload them. All is now good with just 'B D F BPM' next to my light frames.Â
If I load all the masters before loading all the light frames, then this 'B D F BPM STAR NORM' malarkey doesn't happen. So I can make it all work as it should. However, it would be nice not to have this potential 'gotcha' in the system.
Thanks again, I have been fixing several issues like this in the upcoming version 1.057.
Indeed, it has to do with backing up processing details, restoring and cleaning up the data. To do be sure, I'll check this behaviour first thing tomorrow, so I am sure it's fixed in the next release.
Cheers,
Mabula
@gnomus, thank you very much Steve 😉Â
@gregwrca, thank you for suggesting a temporary workaround 😉Â
I have located the issue and it will be fixed in APP 1.057.
Internal tracking of calibration, star analysis, registration and normalization parameters was off for frames that had no parameters at all. The marks showed up nevertheless when other frames had parameters due to a bookkeeping error in my code.
The fix now also properly updates the marks for the calibration frames if you remove a master frame using the right-mouse button menu in the frame list panel.
Cheers,
Mabula
