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.
Now that Cmd-A is back (YAY, thank you SO much Mabula and team!) - this is less of an issue, but I would love it if for some of my larger projects if it were possible to rapidly load days worth of imaging folders at once.
Maybe I am lucky, but my flats generally dont need updating that often and I can collect weeks of data (arranged into folder by Target_name->by_date and it woudl be super helpful to rapidly load them up, cull the junk and start my workflow.Â
Perhaps I am unique in my challenge or maybe I am arranging my folders badly!?
Hi Paul @xthestreams,
Yes, we need to make that possible, do your frames have a tag in the fits files indicating that they are lights as well?
Mabula
Sorry to bump an old thread, but was there any progress here? I don't have any issues with tags either coming from capturing in NINA or ASIAIR. Coming from another product that has a bulk import feature, I build a folder structure like this:
- Root folder of Target
- session_1
- LIGHT
- FLAT
- DARK
- BIAS
- session_2
- same format, continuing for each session needed. Each folder contains its relevant subs.
- session_1
I'm not even sure the folder structure is needed per-sub either (but likely per-session), because the FITS headers always contain the filter or type of sub. If the folder structure is respected though, we don't have to worry about dates either, if for example, flats are taken days after our light frames.
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Thanks again for considering this.
Hi Bob, @tetchy1
This is not yet implemented, but for sure on our ToDo list. We will first release APP 2.0 with project save/load and a full manual after which we will work on the file/folder/recursive loading 😉 thanks for bumping !
Please know that "because the FITS headers always contain the filter or type of sub" is not accurate... it all depends on the capture software/hardware used. Especially older FITS files or FITS from professional telescope archives/teams do not always have that information, some have propietary tags... even the IMAGETYP tag used these days by many software packages to indicate LIGHT/DARK/etc is not even officialy in the FITS specification.
The implementation that we will implement will try to use a folder structure like you indicated and it will look for the relevant tags of course 😉
Mabula
Hi Bob, @tetchy1
This is not yet implemented, but for sure on our ToDo list. We will first release APP 2.0 with project save/load and a full manual after which we will work on the file/folder/recursive loading 😉 thanks for bumping !
Please know that "because the FITS headers always contain the filter or type of sub" is not accurate... it all depends on the capture software/hardware used. Especially older FITS files or FITS from professional telescope archives/teams do not always have that information, some have propietary tags... even the IMAGETYP tag used these days by many software packages to indicate LIGHT/DARK/etc is not even officialy in the FITS specification.
The implementation that we will implement will try to use a folder structure like you indicated and it will look for the relevant tags of course 😉
Mabula
Sorry, I should have clarified that my captured data from ASIAir and NINA has the right headers. I've definitely had to batch edit some FITS to fix headers from other sources though. Thanks again for the update!
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Hi Bob, @tetchy1
Okay, thanks for the feedback. We will try to make this happen in a logical and similar way as other applications out there 😉
Mabula
