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 use ACP for acquisition and by default it tries to image near the meridian. As a result, I end up getting good data, but across many nights. And I also take flats every morning.
I end up with quite a few nights of data - maybe 20 or more.
When I create sessions in APP, I group a few nights together - e.g., Jan 1-4 is one session, Jan 15-18 is another, etc. Â
So when I create a session, APP can read the acquisition date from the FITS header and know the date range covered by that session. Â
It would be great if APP could read the date from the flat file FITS headers and automatically assign flats to a session.
In fact, since my flats are all under a directory called "Flats," APP could scan that directory and find all the flats needed by Filter and by Date and load and assign them all t sessions with a single click 🙂 !
That would be slick!
I use ACP for acquisition and by default it tries to image near the meridian. As a result, I end up getting good data, but across many nights. And I also take flats every morning.
I end up with quite a few nights of data - maybe 20 or more.
When I create sessions in APP, I group a few nights together - e.g., Jan 1-4 is one session, Jan 15-18 is another, etc. Â
So when I create a session, APP can read the acquisition date from the FITS header and know the date range covered by that session. Â
It would be great if APP could read the date from the flat file FITS headers and automatically assign flats to a session.
In fact, since my flats are all under a directory called "Flats," APP could scan that directory and find all the flats needed by Filter and by Date and load and assign them all t sessions with a single click 🙂 !
That would be slick!
Hi Rowland @rowland-f-archer-jr,
So then I assume you create flats every couple of sessions?
Matching flats on date with lights using the same Fits header Filter tags should be possible, I agree, but I am a little bit concerned with automating this. Some users tend to take their flats before imaging (I sometimes do this myself). So there needs to be some rule implemented, like
"match flats with lights, with same filter as lights, where lights are older than the flats, and don't have flats/Masterflat assigned yet".
What do you think?
I would need to implement that in creating the masterflat, the actual capture date and time is stored of the individual flats, then matching the lights with the masterflats becomes possible with such a rule.
Mabula
Hi Mabula,
I agree, what works for me won't work for everyone. I think your suggestion is good though. Perhaps something like this:
1)Â "Automatically assign flats by date" is an option - without it, everything works as it does now
2) If the option is selected, a date tolerance parameter, defaults to zero, is available. Flats that are +/- the value of date tolerance would be considered a match. So I could use flats from +/- one day from the date of the light frame. We might need a separate value for earlier and later date tolerance.
3)Â Flats within the selected date range are then assigned to lights with matching filter value if they don't already have flats assigned.
And yes, Master Flats could have a date range recorded in the FITS header.
Cheers,
Rowland
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