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 Mabula, APP always sets a Bin1x1 frame as integration reference after star analysis although there are better quality frames in the dataset but in Bin2x2. I then set the frame with the highest quality manually as register reference. The registration is started and when the registration goes through suddenly a different ref. frame is selected. It is then again the Ref. frame of the star analysis and registration starts again from the beginning.
I already tried to force a Bin2x2 reference frame by changing the camera name of the Bin1x1 images in the Fits header and deselecting the Same Camera & Optics. Unfortunately without success, APP selects again a new Ref. frame (the one from the star analysis) and starts the registration from the beginning.
Is it possible to change the behavior of APP in such a way that it is also retained when the reference frame is set manually?
I think it was true in earlier versions of APP.
With kind regards
Hi @minusman,
Indeed, older versions did not show this behaviour. The problem here is that APP then is not able to register all frames when you choose a bin2x2 frame in your dataset. Then it tries a better frame and automatically it chooses a bin1x1 and then all frames get registered I assume?
So after a first registration iteration on your manually chosen reference, APP can not register all frames apparently... and then new behaviour kicks in, where APP tries to find another reference frame on which all frames can be registered.
The question which is most important here is, is the result then not okay with the newly chosen reference? I would think it will make little difference or does it? The field of view will have the image scale of the bin1x1 frames, which is what you want to not lose resolution and the rotation of the field of view can be manipulatied with the options below the register button in 4) Register. So you could rotate 180 degrees to compensate for a pier flip for instance.
Mabula
Hello Mabula, okay then the behavior of APP makes sense. Why I want to get a Bin 2x2 image as reference, because the images taken in Bin 1x1 are unfortunately not the best in the whole dataset. Guiding error and moon phase(half moon). But I did not want to discard the Bin 1 images completely, because a Complete night.
If there is the possibility after the register, so assign a new referenze to normalize. So that later the locale normalization can better adjust the qualitatively worse frames in relation to the qualitatively best frame. If the local normalization works like this.
