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 quality scores I see during "analyze stars" often vary substantially from one subframe to the next. For example, I am doing a data reduction right now. Just saw a quality score of 182. But then a quality score of 45 on a subsequent frame. Should I be rejecting the lower score frames during integration? Or do even the lower quality frames add light to the result and so including those should still improve the final integration?
See Mabula's comments here: https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/main-forum/is-fwhm-the-best-measure-to-use/#post-30695
Looked at Mabula's comments. He refers to looking at the FITS header of the integrated file, and specifically mentions, for example, the Signal to Noise Ratio. I looked at the header using MaxIM DL Essentials. I see the total exposure time and other data, butI do not see the SNR listed. Do I need a different software to see that information?
With the integration open in APP, I think all of SNR and other FITS header data are displayed in the Header/Metadata window along side the image display window.
Ah yes. I had not noticed it there since it needs to be expanded to see the information. But I see the same header information as I see in MaxIm DL Essentials. I cannot see a SNR I have attached a screen shot showing the expanded header information in APP. Is the SNR there and I am simply not seeing it?
I think if you upgrade to the latest 2.0 beta version of APP, you will get a much more robust FITS header for your integrations, including SNR data.
I have been avoiding doing that because it is in beta. I suppose If I have trouble with the beta version I can revert to the last known stable version.
you can easily switch back and forth with the betas by just reinstall the desired version... For my purposes the beta29 is stable...
I have installed beta29. I was happy at first to see I was still able to retain the previous stable version after installation of the beta. Unfortunately, if I try to launch the earlier version, I have to re-enter the license info. Then if I try to launch beta 29 again, I must enter the license info yet again. Too bad entering the license info once into each version does not allow both versions to remain active at the same time.
Ok. I only< switched between the 2.0.0 betas. There it was not necessary to enter the code again. But as I wrote I had never problems with beta29.
And I installed only one version at a time.
