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.
Hey all. A few days ago I was digging around here to try to get a process to stack a comet without star trailing. I found a solution that I found pretty easy! I made a little video if anyone finds it helpful.
Thank you! I’ll give it a go over the weekend.
@luckybudd Thanks! Very much looking forward to trying this out. Subcribed to your channel.
@luckybudd Thanks very much for this. Used it today on last night’s comet images and it worked brilliantly.
Stickied this post as it seems to help quite a few people, nicely done! 😉
@vincent-mod happy to do my small part, my friend! Thank you for all you guys do!
Problem is all those rejection techniques end up damaging the details in the comet tail. I tried a lot of them with different lower and higher values.
To the developers: we need at the minimum a batch mode to calibrate and remove the stars on all subs individually. AND then the ability to register them on the comet nucleus and stack them without the stars.
Removing stars on the stacked image creates a lot of damage. This effect is a less damaging when stars are removed before stacking.
Is this something we can wish for, hope for before the next bright comet?
Yes, we moved this feature way up our list, so we are going to work on that sooner. Of course it always becomes the top most feature for everyone when a comet arrives, I get that, but we're working on multiple requests as always. 🙂
@luckbudd thanks very much for this workflow will give it a try over the weekend
@thedevelopers, this was first promised back in 2020, one of the reasons I purchased my licence, other softwares have this feature (Pixinsight) already
Hey all. A few days ago I was digging around here to try to get a process to stack a comet without star trailing. I found a solution that I found pretty easy! I made a little video if anyone finds it helpful.
thank you for the video - well done
This is great, but I'm really struggling with the Photoshop phase. Is there any chance of taking me through that more slowly or do I just need to learn photoshop better? Somehow, the subtraction doesn't work for me and this is probably a noob-thing, but I can't figure it out myself.
Sure! I would be happy to. What is happening in this step is that you are subtracting the same elements out. So, make sure the blurred comet with stars is one layer, and the blurred comet without layers is the other, one on top of the other.
Then -> Image and scroll down to Apply Image.
From there you will see a dialog box. Where it says BLENDING, change it from MULTIPLY which is the default to SUBTRACT. At this point, the box with your photos underneath should turn black.
Then, in the box marked LAYER, change it from BACKGROUND to either Layer 1 or background and you should see the blend happen.
If this does not work, let me know at which point you are stuck and i will try to help. Maybe take some screen shots? Cheers!
