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.
I created a 2x2 mosaic with an OSC camera with a ZWO Duo filter.  I watched Sara's video on how to integrate them in APP (do all four panels at once in one swell foop).  The result was well balanced color-wise but the overlap regions were distorted.  Note that with 380 total images (4x95) it took 24 hours to run (Beta 22) so I'm not crazy about just "playing around"with the settings. Not sure if it was operator error (settings?) or a application issue.
Next I integrated all four panels individually and they looked great (except when viewed side by side as will be visible later). Â I then integrated the four resulting images in APP and boy did that NOT work. Â No clue what I did wrong:
Next I tried merging them in Photoshop. Â After a lot of work removing the black borders (from APP?) they aligned nicely but then you could see how each each panel was slightly different from each other (brightness/contrast/something) which made for a wonky result
At this point I'm lost; not sure how to make this work. Â I'd prefer to improve on the overlap/merge artifacts within APP so I could keep this in a fits format for cleaner editing...but no clue how. Â Any advice would be welcome.
Are you using MBB and LNC as well? What APP version is this?
Beta 22 (it was in the post). Â I ran both when I did them together. Â When I did them individually and combined later, I ran MBB on both and LNC on the 4-panel integration
Did you set the MBB to the percentage of overlap between the panels?
I found no guidance on that. Â I bumped it up from the default (5% to 15%), I think my overlap was 20-25% (don't recall now)
If you hover with your mouse over the button it shows more information. But yes, try to set it to the % of overlap.
Hover is helpful, but it didn't provide that nugget of information. Â For MBB, you mean for the all-in-one process or the individual stacks being combined in a second step?
MBB is mainly useful for mosaics, it is designed to get rid of panel overlap lines. LNC can be used at standard settings, but you can first start with MBB at 20%.
Rather than run another 24hr integration, I can pick a 10% subset of the files to see if upping MBB makes it better
Creating panels first and then creating the mosaic from the panels is the way to go, doing all subs at once (is that what you're doing?) is possible, but not really better and takes way longer due to way more complex math.
So, 4 panels first, then combine with the mosaic settings:
- Star count to about 2000
- Registration scale start at 5, scale stop at 10
- Same camera/optics off, dynamic distortion on (off if that creates weird results)
- Registration mode: mosaic
- Normalization mode: advanced
- MBB to overlap (in your case 20%)
If that doesn't work, I'll ask for some data of the panels and calibration files to test myself. Also, settings of tabs are now saved in beta 22, to be sure you start with defaults first you can reset that in the CFG menu (top left of APP).
First attempt followed Sara Wagner's tutorial (all of them together). Â If that's not the best way, I recommend you yank that video off the website as it will lead folks astray (case in point).
When I did the individual panels and then combined them I got a TERRIBLE result (see OP, middle picture).
Yes, I'll talk to Mabula if we can do something with that indeed, thanks. The terrible result is strange, could you try again with the settings I mentioned? If that still gives that result I'd like to look at the data.
I ran the full up process with a smaller subset of the data (10 frames per panel instead of 95). Â I bumped up MBB to 25(?)Â (it in fact did not save so I don't recall what I set it to) but it still has overlap artifacts, although this time they are more pronounced on the right side than the left.
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Will try again integrating the individual panels with your parameters. Â Willing to share data, not sure how.
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WOW...more detailed inspection is required however that seemed to work. Â I must have clicked something last time that I shouldn't have!!
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