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've been combining TIFFs into a mosaic using APP, and to this point it has worked perfectly. Last night it started giving a variety of errors towards the end of integration; the first time it said "Encountered error in module: MultipleViewUncalibratedNoDistortionCorrection Error message: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 11".
I tried combining just two adjacent TIFFs that had previously worked OK, and got the module "Integrator", and the exception was "Coordinate out of bounds!"
As I'd just purchased the owner's license and upgraded to the latest, after searching the forum I tried uninstalling APP and installing 1.083.3, but still got the Exception:11 error.
I'm running Windows 11, although my license information after reinstalling states that the 1.083.3 version is installed on a second laptop (it isn't) using Windows 10.
I'm not sure if it's something I've changed, although the new install seemed to be back to defaults.
Hoping someone can assist.
Cheers, David
Edit: no helpful suggestions have been forthcoming 🙁 but I suspect the issue is with the last observation I made. I've got it to the point where APP will successfully combine the observations it had previously managed, but it is still throwing the MultipleViewUncalibratedNoDistortionCorrection Error message: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException error. I'm using a Vespera. APP will happily combine the FITs into a TIFF, but will not combine that TIFF with the previous observations' TIFFs. I'll wait for the moon to go away and the clouds to disappear and try again...
Hi David @davidskeltoutlook-com,
Please accept my apologies for the late reply to this issue.
The error definitely indicates a problem with registering the images. It is an issue on our todo list, so we are aware of this.
First of all, usually, the error goes away when you modify settings in 3) analyse stars or in 4) register.
3) try to increase the detected star count
4) increase scale stop if possible
Another reason for the issue, could be that the new TIFF has too little overlap with the previous Tiff files, so registering them is simply to hard? Do you know how much overlap there would be?
Oh, and something that does affect this is linearity. Please make sure that the TIFFs still contain linear (so not stretched) data, that improves results for sure 😉
Mabula
@mabula-admin Thanks! Definitely using linear data; I've repeated the observation, and increased the overlap. It does (technically) stack the images, but a slightly different issue has popped up. I can stack 11 or 12 tiles quite happily, but when I load all 14 the final mosaic is very distorted (image below).
Cheers!
Dear David, @davidskeltoutlook-com
Okay, glad it is working now. The distortion that you see now is due to the large field of view of the whole mosaic. The default projection of a telescope or normaly photography lens is rectilinear.
But rectilinear will only work well with fields of view smaller than 100-120 degrees. TO overcome this issue:
- 4) Register, use the calibrated projective registration model and register the mosaic in that way. Then you will be able to project the data with other projections like equirectangular and mercator. Then it should look much better.
Let me know if this works 😉
Mabula
@mabula-admin Thanks Mabula - I appreciate the support! I'll give it a go tonight and let you know.
