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,
my question is: which is the best de-Bayering algorithm for astrometry and/or photometry when using the images from a one-shot color camera with a large FOV (short focal length) of several degrees?
Did somebody here already use the „Adaptive Airy Disc“ (AAD) algorithm for that purpose? Or would another de-bayer algorithm give better results?
Probably I have to explain here, what the reason for this question is: currently I am doing an experiment using a one-shot CMOS color camera (with Sony IMX571 chip, APS-C format, back-illuminated) with 3.76 micron pixels on the 135mm Samyang Lens. This gives about 6“/pixel (without binning). I want to find out which astrometric/photometric precision can be obtained with this equipment.
My first experience is that residuals (against ATLAS2 catalog) over this large FOV are in the range of 0.5 to 2.5 arcsec. All over! The photometric precision was a bit below 0.1 mag when restricting comp stars to 15 arcmin neighborhood. So far not too bad with such equipment (and without the de-bayer algorithm of APP).
Does anyone here have some experience with de-bayering and could give advice how best practice is for the mentioned purposes (and the above equipment)?
Best regards,
Hipoh
Hi,
my question is: which is the best de-Bayering algorithm for astrometry and/or photometry when using the images from a one-shot color camera with a large FOV (short focal length) of several degrees?
Did somebody here already use the „Adaptive Airy Disc“ (AAD) algorithm for that purpose? Or would another de-bayer algorithm give better results?
Probably I have to explain here, what the reason for this question is: currently I am doing an experiment using a one-shot CMOS color camera (with Sony IMX571 chip, APS-C format, back-illuminated) with 3.76 micron pixels on the 135mm Samyang Lens. This gives about 6“/pixel (without binning). I want to find out which astrometric/photometric precision can be obtained with this equipment.
My first experience is that residuals (against ATLAS2 catalog) over this large FOV are in the range of 0.5 to 2.5 arcsec. All over! The photometric precision was a bit below 0.1 mag when restricting comp stars to 15 arcmin neighborhood. So far not too bad with such equipment (and without the de-bayer algorithm of APP).
Does anyone here have some experience with de-bayering and could give advice how best practice is for the mentioned purposes (and the above equipment)?
Best regards,
Hipoh
Hi @hipoh,
Thank you very much for your interesting question.
I would suggest to you that you do try Adaptive Airy Disc, it should work well. But for best precision, do not demosaic/debayer at all, but rather use Bayer/X-Trans Drizzle, you can set this in 6) Integrate at the bottom 😉
Use Bayer/X-Trans drizzle and set the drizzle droplets to 2 pixels. That should give similar results as demosaicing/debayering in terms of resolution. If you set the droplets lower, you will gain resolution, but will also have more noise.
Let me know if this helps 😉
Mabula
Thanks for your valuable suggestions! I will try both and will report here about the results.
CS! hipoh
