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.
Hi Mabula -
I want to make sure that I correctly understand how APP is going to calibrate my images. I've reviewed the Data calibration rules at:
One of the things that's not clear to me is that you have various methods for calibrating flat frames as well as light frames (i.e., for flat frames I can calibrate with a Master Bias OR a Master Flat Dark, OR a Master Flat that was calibrated with Master Bias + a Master Bias). What's unclear to me is that if I were to load (as an example) some lights along with a Master Flat that was already calibrated by a Master Dark, that same Master Dark, and that same Master Bias, will APP automatically decide that The Master Flat was already calibrated with a Master Dark, so it will ignore the Master (Flat) Dark and the Master Bias (for calibrating the Master Flat)?
I'm assuming that the headers for the Master Flat would indicate that they've already been calibrated with a matching Master Dark.
The reason I'm asking is that it's unclear to me if I can just load all of my master files and/or calibration files and assume that APP will safely figure out the right files for calibration, or do I need to be very careful as to what I feed to APP to ensure that I don't have images "double" calibrated (i.e., a Master flat created that has both the Flat Darks and Bias subtracted).
By the same token, let's say I load the following files into APP:
1) Some 20 minute lights
2) Some flat frames of 16 seconds each
3) Some flat darks of 16 second each
4) Some 20 minute darks
5) A BPM
6) A Master Bias
My hope is that APP will:
a) Create a Master Flat that was calibrated with the Flat Darks (and not with the Master Bias).
b) Create a Master Dark from the 20 minute darks
c) Calibrate the lights by first subtracting the Master Dark (or, if the MD has had the MB subtracted, it will add the MB and then subtract the MD), divide by the Dark corrected Master Flat, and then apply the BPM to correct for bad pixels.
Is this what I should expect?
For clarity, I've uploaded a Zip file to our Dropbox (QSI690-CalibrationSampleData.zip) that contains the masters from the group I describe above. I thought it might be helpful for you to look at the Fits headers to ensure I don't have anything strange going on.
Thanks for your help,
Scott - http://www.astronomersdoitinthedark.com/
Hi Scott,
Thank you for your questions regarding calibration.
One of the things that's not clear to me is that you have various methods for calibrating flat frames as well as light frames (i.e., for flat frames I can calibrate with a Master Bias OR a Master Flat Dark, OR a Master Flat that was calibrated with Master Bias + a Master Bias). What's unclear to me is that if I were to load (as an example) some lights along with a Master Flat that was already calibrated by a Master Dark, that same Master Dark, and that same Master Bias, will APP automatically decide that The Master Flat was already calibrated with a Master Dark, so it will ignore the Master (Flat) Dark and the Master Bias (for calibrating the Master Flat)?
I'm assuming that the headers for the Master Flat would indicate that they've already been calibrated with a matching Master Dark.
Currently the headers don't contain this information. I intend to add this soon. And at the moment, the calibration engine is not too user friendly and not too smart, so I am planning to give it a big facelift. For some calibration paths, APP works really simple, but for others, you need to be a bit carefull so that should be altered I think.
The reason I'm asking is that it's unclear to me if I can just load all of my master files and/or calibration files and assume that APP will safely figure out the right files for calibration, or do I need to be very careful as to what I feed to APP to ensure that I don't have images "double" calibrated (i.e., a Master flat created that has both the Flat Darks and Bias subtracted).
So yes, you need to be careful at the moment. APP can't figure this out for you yet.
By the same token, let's say I load the following files into APP:
1) Some 20 minute lights
2) Some flat frames of 16 seconds each
3) Some flat darks of 16 second each
4) Some 20 minute darks
5) A BPM
6) A Master Bias
My hope is that APP will:
a) Create a Master Flat that was calibrated with the Flat Darks (and not with the Master Bias).
b) Create a Master Dark from the 20 minute darks
c) Calibrate the lights by first subtracting the Master Dark (or, if the MD has had the MB subtracted, it will add the MB and then subtract the MD), divide by the Dark corrected Master Flat, and then apply the BPM to correct for bad pixels.
Is this what I should expect?
If you were to load this then things will go wrong or lead to suboptimal calibration results probably. You need to be careful with adding both bias with darks and bias with flat darks. If you were to leave out the bias frames then it should go well. Using both bias with darks or bias with flat darks will complicate things since the bias signal with offset is in the darks and flat darks as well. So if you plan to use dark current calibration for your lights and flats, leave the bias out I would suggest.
If you upload a light frame or 2 as well, with a couple of single calibration frames (so 5x bias, dark, dark flat & flat), I will have a look tomorrow 😉
thank you Scott,
Mabula
