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.
NGC 2264 Cone Nebula
Imaging scope Celestron 8" Newtonian
Mount AVX
Guiding scope Svbony 30/120
Imaging camera QHYCCD163M, Baader coma corrector
Guiding camera ASI120MM
HaRGB combination 10x300s Ha, 30x160s Red, 30x160s Green 30x160s Blue, 30 flats and 30 dark flats per filter, 30x300s and 30x160s
N.I.N.A, PHD2, Astro Pixel Processor
Seeing 5, transparency 5, bortle 9
Since I have a limited angle of view I completed in 3 nights
That's a beauty! Seems like there is some color gradients in the image? Could also be part of the object, difficult to say sometimes. 🙂
Thanks.
You're absolutely right. I've seen very different pictures of Cone nebula, it's located in a very wide nebulosity, which can be noticed either with 3.5nm narrowband filters or very long time exposures. In a bortle9 I could shoot max. 160seconds with RGB filters, so these gradients are possibly a light pollution, which I do not want to work hardly, in the name of not loosing some real nebulosity details.
Understood, you can correct for that pretty good usually, but if it indeed is not your preference for the other area's, that's fine as well of course. 🙂 Very nice anyway!
