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.
Hi Folks,
First time poster on the APP forum. I noticed that my MasterDark frame has a vertical band along the left hand side of the frame that is not present in my dark subs or bias subs. This is occurring with the default settings and I can reproduce it by loading just 1 dark frame (no bias, flats, or lights) and running the calibration to generate the master dark. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong and I cannot get rid of band.
I've attached jpgs of both the master dark frame and the original dark after applying a DDP stretch (30% BG, 2 sigma, 0.0% base) to both. I'm using a Canon 6D and the dark is 450 Seconds long.
Thanks!
-Bret
Hi Bret and welcome to the forum,
That band is a bit odd indeed, I think it's best if you could upload your calibration data to our server for me to check out (if possible).
Go to https://upload.astropixelprocessor.com and use upload1 as username and upload1 as password.
Create a directory named “bstott_98-darkband” and upload in there. Thank you!
Files uploaded ... thanks for taking a look!
No problem, I'll have a look tomorrow as the evening is getting late. 🙂 Did you notice an issue when using the masterdark on your lights btw?
@vincent-mod
Doing a full calibration w/ 31 lights, lp reduction, and an extreme stretch, it's barely visible ... maybe ... it's difficult to tell if it's the dark band or due to the edges of the light frames after stacking.
-Bret
Hi Bret,
So would it be possible to add like 10 dark subs to your directory? Just so I can check if it does the same here. On your integration it doesn't seem to have a great effect if at all, what happens if you take out the dark and only use bias and a BPM?
