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.
This may have already been posted and I missed, it but I'll post this in case. Charles Bracken - the author of astronomy books including Deep Sky Imaging Primer - is "big fan of APP" and has posted a Quick Start Guide to APP. You can get it here: https://digitalstars.wordpress.com/2020/09/19/an-astropixelprocessor-quick-start-guide/
edit from Vincent; this is a 3rd party workflow, but from an experienced source. 😉
Nice! Thanks for sharing.
This is a great quick-start guide and should be prominently posted for anyone just starting with APP! Wish I'd had this when I was first started working with APP.
Cool! I'll make it a sticky in the workflow section of the forum.
Just purchased it after trialing it for some time , getting ok results but think its more my light pollution and gradients thats making it difficult ?
The quick start guide certainly helped along with a couple of videos i watched.
Picked this over Pixinsight for relative simplicity for a relative newby like me.
Cliff
Good to hear, thanks for your purchase @cliff99, very much appreciated! You can always open a topic if there is something you'd like help with.
Just wanted to say thanks for posting the link. It has been a help to both inform and confirm how I’m doing things. It’s amazing what you learn doing astro processing.
