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 am trying to work with comet C/2020 F3 using the 1.083 beta. I get to Integration and it aborts, complaining about not having enough disk space (21GB) to complete the task.
I have 42 lights and 164 each of darks, flats and biases. All of them are NEF files (raw Nikon). The work directory is set to an external USB drive with a capacity of 5 TB and which is now half-full. I would expect that APP would figure that 21 GB needed to integrate the 42 normalized images is much less than the 2.2 TB of free space.
Why is this happening and what can be done to correct this?
Mmm, it could be that the OS is reporting a wrong number maybe, I’ve seen this before. Or there is an issue with working with the external drive somehow, can you check if it works when you use a local disk? It is usually recommended to use a fast internal disk as APP is doing a lot of disk interaction during the processes.
Vincent, I have been checking the previous threads. I am using an external USB3 drive for a working directory.
What happens is that during integration, the File Explorer comes up after Windows 10 chimes with the contents of the I: drive (the external drive). Eventually APP fails, despite the fact that there are 2.3 TB available, because it cannot find 21 GB. I point the working directory to a folder called I:/C2020 F3 APP.
I am working with a gaming machine: ASUS 751GJ, 24GB RAM, running Windows 10 Home version 1903. The internal drive (C:) is 1 TB (931GB) with 910 GB used and 21 GB remaining. Perhaps APP is reading C: instead of I:.
I will move the pictures off C: and onto the I: drive, thus freeing 663 GB. I will repeat the operation and let you know of the results. It is just that I have wasted hours dealing with this nonsense.
Ah now that is interesting. If Windows comes up with the contents of the directory, it means the external drive got disconnected and reconnected somehow. Maybe there is an issue with that? This is exactly one of the reasons not to have a working directory on an external drive, that connection needs to be both fast and very stable.
I checked the connections. The external drive connections were and are good. I am in the process of moving data to the I: drive to clear up space. No issues at all, so far.
Usually when these kind of strange behaviors occur, it has something to do with the specific system. These can be caused by a multitude of different things, so that’s really hard to pinpoint. Maybe adding an extra SSD to your system is possible? That will greatly benefit the speed as well.
