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.
New to APP , and watching and reading as much tutorials / faqs as I can.
Cant seem to find a specific way to get the best output from Multiple sessions in my Bortle 8 area , of the same target over a period of months. At the basic level If I use the same Focal length , exposure , ISO settings over multiple nights am I better to combine either :
1. Integrate all in one go using the multi session option.
2. Integrate each night separately as 1 session. Then combine the integrated final non stretched fits produced at the end of each session together. Will it treat the final integrated Fits from each session as ‘Light’ files that have been fully processed . So in effect I’m stacking the final files from each night together?
Tia.
You can create integrations of a few nights together (ideally over 40 subs at least). This will not stress your system as much as combining everything (which requires a big system ususally). Those integrations can then be combined again when you have them all, the result should be quite nice doing it that way and yes, you can load integrations as lights. No calibration frames then of course as they should've been used already for the integrations.
@vincent-mod
Will there be a difference between the two ways (i.e. a) stack everything in one go and (b)stack each session separately and then stack results) ? If so which should give better result?
Hi Igor,
Sorry I was on the move for a few weeks. So, theoretically stacking the subs would give a slightly better result. However, in practice, I never really saw that and it's not always handy either as a lot of subs can give memory issues. You can try both approaches to see if you see a difference, but I tend to combine integrations I corrected fully etc.
Hello
I recently started using APP and started to experiment with multi session approach. If I produce integrated fits (non-stretched) from individual sessions what is the process to combine them? Do I load them up as light frames and run integrate ? I noticed pulling them as "processed" files and trying to integrate complains that there are no light frames.
Thank you
You indeed just load them in as lights.
