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.
Hello,
The last several months have been very discouraging, not only because of the clouds but also because it seemed like each set of data that I processed came out with this ugly yellow tinge that is problematic to remove. They also always have vignetting. Both these issues seem to be new, as I am using the same telescope, camera and image train I did for galaxy season last year and I didn't have these problems then.
Thinking I had bad (6-month-old) calibration data in my library for the ASI294MC-Pro, I reshot:
250 Bias @ gain 0 and 120, offset 8
50 Darks @ gain 0 and 120, offset 8 at all my typical exposure durations (300s in this case)
Today, I processed last night's M57 data with APP -- 30 lights, 50 flats, 50 dark flats and the 32-bit master calibration frames with the proper gain and offset and duration from the above library (which were processed in APP). It again looked yellow on the screen, and when I opened it in PixInsight for the rest of my workflow it appeared stretched much worse, had bad vignetting and the amp glow wasn't totally subtracted.
Frustrated at seeing the same old thing, I spun up a Windows VM on my Mac and downloaded a copy of DeepSkyStacker. 20 minutes later, I was shocked to see a very nice looking image. The screen shot attached is the APP and DSS versions opened in PI, with only SCNR and ABE applied.
I want to use APP for as much of my processing as possible, and want to avoid Windows and DSS, but the results I am getting are darn near un-workable. I must be doing something wrong -- I see AMAZING results with APP from others. Any ideas? I use very much the defaults for almost everything.
@mountainair Hi! Sorry to see that you have troubles using APP. Which version of APP do you use? Did you do a “default” integration or did you change any of the settings? Does the same yellow image appear if you integrate without any calibration data at all? Are you using the internal HD of your computer or an external one?
There probably will follow more questions once you answer these.
Thanks, Wouter
@wvreeven Hi Wouter, thanks for jumping in to help! I'm using the latest stable release, 1.082, for MacOS. The only change I made in this run was to step 3 Analyze Stars (changed to 2500). In other attempts I did make changes to 2 Calibrate (to create 32-bit masters), 5 Normalize (to use Advanced mode). Integration has always been default.
I am using a 2019 16" MacBook Pro with all files on the internal SSD drive.
I did also try various combinations of excluding the calibration frames. The flats are definitely adding to the vignetting problem (I just read a followup to one of my earlier posts suggesting that we take much brighter flats at gain 0, which I will try tomorrow -- but DSS is using the same files and doesn't seem to cause this vignetting), but everything is still yellow (to a lesser degree, but still bad).
@mountainair Would you mind uploading a sample of the lights and flats and the other masters to
https://upload.astropixelprocessor.com
using upload1 for both username and password? Please create a directory called mountainair_yellow and put the files in there. Let me know when they are uploaded and I’ll have a look. Thanks!
@wvreeven Done! I've uploaded 10 from each. Note I just realized the flat wizard gives the files the same name regardless of whether it's a flat or a dark flat. The dark flats start with this filename: FlatWizard_2021-06-04_05-25-46__-14.10_4.82s_0000_120_8.fits and go to FlatWizard_2021-06-04_05-26-43__-14.80_4.82s_0009_120_8.fits.
Thanks! I'm really curious what's wrong.
@mountainair OK I already had a look using 1.083-beta2 on my MacBook Pro. I did three integrations: without any calibration files, with the master dark, and with the master dark, flats and dark flats. All three integrations look OK to me.
Only the lights:
With the master dark:
With the master dark, flats and dark flats:
Can you give 1.083-beta2 a try as well?
Those do look better than mine, though still yellow. I tried playing with the color channel balance when importing and that does improve it, but it's time-consuming trial and error. I am downloading the beta now and will give that a go -- wow, what a boatload of improvements in 1.083!
If you have a copy of PixInsight (sorry to even mention it here), could you open one of your stacked and processed files and do an STF? That's where things really get crazy.
I wonder, could something about my flat panel be interfering with something in APP, but not DSS? I have a 13-inch EL panel that appears somewhat blueish to the eye. Come to think of it, though, I do see this problem with another EL panel that appears very white.
Thanks Wouter!
It does look like the dark is causing an issue somehow. Just try it again without flats and see, if it produces this again there is likely something going on with the darks.
