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 loaded 30 Ha images of 30 seconds each (center of M42). Scale 1"/pixel with 2x2 bin.
After calibration with masterbias and star analysis, many images showed only 5-11 stars in the resulting table. Therefore, no proper star analysis for these images, and high FWHM values (as high as 6-7) for images that were analyzed.
I went back to 1.074.1 and no problems with star analysis of the same images. Each image showed around 40-50 stars, and FWHM values in the normal range (3 to 3.5).
I think I have a similar message with 1 Ha field with M42 on it. Other fields near this find 1000 stars where this one make an error with only 11 stars
I will try to send a link for calibrated FIT of 1 working image and 1 not working.
Try to make a mosaic with these 2 images My goal was to verify pointing of 12 fields and check overlap.
I got error message due to lack of stars on M8 field
So yes I'm getting the same. It seems there is a problem already with the separate integrations. When I look closely at them I see artefacts like the picture below, that should be better first I think.
Please find enclosed two raw files as well as the calibrated files (bias corrected plus the new cosmetic correction features).
Thank you Ruud. There aren't many stars visible, but it should be enough. The only thing I see with the one that fails is that the stars are elongated. But I don't think that should be a problem. I'll let Mabula know, thanks for sharing.
Try to make a mosaic with these 2 images My goal was to verify pointing of 12 fields and check overlap.
I got error message due to lack of stars on M8 field
So yes I'm getting the same. It seems there is a problem already with the separate integrations. When I look closely at them I see artefacts like the picture below, that should be better first I think.
Hi
I think you didn’t understand : this is NOT integrated image, but RAW images.
Artefacts, yes, created with APP !!!
But, for me (and not only me) is why it is working on 1.074.x and not on 1.075
Hi Ruud @pol75rex, Philippe @ccd2048, Mert @lammertus & Vincent @vincent-mod,
First of all, if you look at the extensive release notes of APP 1.075, you will see that something changed between APP 1.075 and 1.074.1 with respect to Star Analysis/Detection :
FIXED/IMPROVED, 3) STAR ANALYSIS, the star analysis module now fully supports severely undersampled data. Undersampled data means that the star sizes in Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) are less than 2 pixels. APP will now be able to process these frames as well. Undersampling could occur due to having too large pixels for your focal length and atmospheric conditions, or due to binning of your camera's sensor for instance.
IMPROVED, STAR ANALYSIS, further improvements have been implemented in star detection to make it more robust on both data with small and large FWHM values. Especially discrimination between hot pixels and small stars has been further improved. Further improvements were triggered by this topic where registration was done on hot pixels instead of stars: https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/main-forum/my-stars-wont-align-after-integration/
Clearly, these adjustments fail to work on your data for some reason. My apologies for this inconvenience, I did test it extensively on a wider range of images with different FWHM values. I will download all of your data and I will do further testing to make sure it works properly again in APP 1.076.
BIG IMPROVEMENT, STAR ANALYSIS, extensive work has been done on improving star detection and analysis, due to some users reporting issues with Star Analysis in APP 1,075 ( https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/rfcs-request-for-changes/problem-with-star-analysis-1-075/ ). I am happy to announce that all reported data that gave issues, now works flawlessly. The Star Analysis module is also twice as fast now while becoming much more robust and memory consumption is kept very low as well. Users will notice that APP will detect more stars on more datasets as well. Here are some performance graphs that show Star Analysis of 100 H-alpha frames of 5 different optical setups, for 4 CPU threads, 8 CPU threads and 16 CPU threads, APP 1.075 versus APP 1.076:
Ruud, on your data, 40 stars are again found 😉
Philippe, on your images, about 2500 stars are now detected robustly and I can register the 2 frames as well:
I will try to release a BETA as soon as possible so you can test the improvements yourself 😉
