May 27 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta45 has been released !
Fully Multi-Threaded LNC, many improvements for the registration engine, platform upgrade, and further tuning of internal memory consumption and memory release back to OS.
Apr 14 2026: Google Pay, Apple Pay & WeChat Pay added as payment options
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
So having just taken a dozen or two frames of Lemmon at o-dark thirty this morning, I'm trying to stack them in APP, but have run into an error.
I was on a previous version, I think maybe beta26 or somesuch, so I installed the latest and still getting the same error in the same spot when its on the Registration sequence. I get the popup asking if I want to use the timestamps to help more accurately track the comet, I've tried both yes and no, no change. I am not even getting to the point where I get prompted to select the comet.
Ok, well, it did finally go through, I kept changing settings on other stuff and then it finally accepted it. I think it was having issues with the Dynamic Distortion Correction settings, as well as the Registration Model needed to be on Projective. Not that I've had the dynamic distortion settings really do anything to help with my wider shots anyways, as they always end up distorted like crazy if different.
Ok, so the first result doesn't look great, as if it def got the center wrong on a few subs, looks like there's some ghosted tails in there.
I guess now I have to figure out how to get a clean "comet" shot and a clean "stars" shot to combine for a final image. So its working, ish.
I am just a few steps behind you. I have one data set I need to process, and hope to get another set tonight. Any chance the StarNet, StarXterminator, or APP's star elimination tool will work on streaked stars like these? If so, I have data from previous years I need to reprocess!
Regards, Martin
@martinontheroad One thing I tried is to take the comet registrated files, save them as tif(f) and batch process them in StarNet++. Then I reimport them into APP and integrate with star analysis and registration disabled of course. So you’ll get almost starless comet subs. However, I wasn’t satisfied with the overall result. Maybe there is a better way to do this.
If you are able to generate a stack with a good comet and streaked stars there is an old trick that can be used (but its a bit tedious).
You start by taking your raw subs and grouping them into at least four groups of non-successive exposures (more than four if you have the patience).
That is:
- Sub 1 -> group 1
- Sub 2 -> group 2
- Sub 3 -> group 3
- Sub 4 -> group 4
- Sub 5 -> group 1
- Sub 6 -> group 2
- Sub 7 -> group 3
- Sub 8 -> group 4
and so on.
Then you integrate each group normally - using comet registration.
You end up with four integrations with hopefully a good comet but with star streaks that don't overlap.
Then you load these four integrations as lights (no calibration frames).
Disable registration and integrate using median stacking.
This should hopefully leave you with a good comet and no stars. If you want, the good stars can be added back from a normal integration.
JC
@connor231 That sounds interesting! I only have around 44 subs so far, but I’ll give that method a try asap! Thanks for the hint.
@nickoson-2 Looks very nice to me. I think the "ghosted" tails are actually real on this comet.
