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.
Hi everybody!
Very new user of APP.
I gave APP a shot in comet processing. I am working on a LRGB set of images (3xL= 180sec + 5RGB =180sec) of comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS I obtained a year ago (remot T20 itelescope). I found that the "align to comet" tools works fine within channels but when I tried to obtain the color image... It also splits into the components (unaligned). Is there a way to "move" individually the images in the "combine RGB" menu, to obtain the desired alignement or everything is thought to be automatic?
I'll upload the result of the alignment in a jpg
 Any advice to work with LRGB comet images? In fact I have quite a few LRGB combinations of comets and I am very interested in which APP could offer us in this tricky astrophotography field.Â
Many thanks for your kind advices
Â
Jordi Belloc
( http://belpi.net  )
I don't think that is possible like that yet. It may be a good idea to wait a little for the next release, here a lot of updates have been made to the comet stacking. That release should be within a month I expect. Then we can have a good look at how to approach this properly, are you ok with that?
Dear Vincent,Â
We have a say around here which translates more or less to "It is never late, if the outcome is good" ... so let's wait for the next improvements in APP. In the meantime you have a couple of amateur hands eager to test the new features as soon as you thing they are ready 🙂
Keep doing this awesome work
Jordi
Thank you very much. 🙂 In the next version you should be able to also play with removing the stars etc.
