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.
I have this problem with APP 2 beta6, when I launch the application it shows the separate console window and it hangs with a beachball.
This seems to happen only if the cfg is set to have the separate console open and is much more frequently if Stage Manager is active, i.e. I have never been able to launch it with stage manager if separate windows are configured while without stage manager it is a bit random. If I disable separate windows it seems to launch fine.
Beta4 works just fine afaik so it seems related to the new separate console code.
Thanks for noticing that! That's annoying as that's my code. 🙂 Unfortunately I don't have the latest MacOS so I will ask Wouter on our team to have a look as well, of course we will try to address that.
let me know if you need any more info: I'm a Java developer myself so have all the tools you might want to diagnose problems 🤣Â
Thanks, that's cool. 🙂 We do have the tools, but I don't have a Mac so that makes things a bit tricky with new releases sometimes. Mabula has all the machines (I'm not jealous...) so we will find out. I was already reworking the console window, so it must be something simple I think, it's just a frame basically.
FWIW 2.0.0-beta6 opens fine for me on my Intel MacBook with Ventura and with the console as a separate window in APP.
@alfogator I have enabled Stage Manager and started APP 2.0.0-beta6. As you can see, APP starts normally. I brought the console window to the front so you can see that it runs in a separate window.
Hi @wvreeven thanks for checking it out on a saturday.
I took a screen capture to show you the problem:
 and of course now that I have enabled the console in cfg to show you the problem it won't launch anymore with or without stage manager, as you can see in the short video. Beta4 launches without problems.Â
Right now I'm stuck to beta4, is there a way I can disable the console option by editing a config file somewhere?
PS: I'm using a Apple M1 Max Macbook Pro 16.
Update: I tried downloading the intel version of beta6 and it launched fine, after that the arm64 version starts just fine (for now).
Update 2: still weird, tried launching APP again after a while and it was stuck at launch as before. Launched the x86 version again and it launched fine, afterwards the arm64 version launched just fine as well.
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Very strange. I was wondering if it is an issue between M-processors and Intel somehow. But does APP now start with the M1 compatible version all the time? Or just once after going back and forth?
Very strange. I was wondering if it is an issue between M-processors and Intel somehow. But does APP now start with the M1 compatible version all the time? Or just once after going back and forth?
not sure, it has been pretty random so far.
Just in case it might be useful this is how it started malfunctioning yesterday:
- launched APP, renter license expired
- went to website, saw beta6 was out so downloaded it
- bought a perpetual license (apparently it takes me 2 years of engagement before getting married to a piece of software)
- launched beta6, activated
- settings were to default so I went to the cfg button and enabled separated preview window, as I did that APP froze with spinning beach ball, so eventually I killed it
- relaunched and it got stuck at the console, like in the video
- this morning I went back to see if I could fix it and after trying several things I noticed the stage manager thing I wrote about, you know the rest
Thanks for the detailed history. 🙂 So a very important part there is this: "and enabled separated preview window, as I did that APP froze with spinning beach ball,". That means it's not specific to the console, but to any separated window. That might narrow it down a bit (hopefully).
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Hi all,
We think that we might have a fixed Astro Pixel Processor version for macOS Ventura. Can you all try the following 2.0.0-beta7test version and let us know if this solves it and works properly?
intel hardware:
new M1/M2/arm hardware:
Release notes for this version:
Looking forward to your feedback!
Mabula
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Hi @Mabula,
I just loaded the beta7 test version and it launched successfully on MACOS 12.6.1 So if it fixes Ventura issue, it seems to remain backwards compatible. Â I did not yet try any processing yet, though
Clear skies,
Jochen
Hi @mabula-admin , I did some tests on the beta 7 version and so far I have not experienced the issue that was reported.
Thanks for the update!
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Hi @jochen-scharmann & @alfogator,
Thank you very much for your feedback, that is highly appreciated 🙂 !
I am very glad to hear all seems to work well now on macOS Monterey and Ventura !
Mabula
