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 have frequent problems trying to register mosaic panels with PixInsight, so I am trying APP. Â It is registering the panels beautifully, but I'm having a strange problem with integration: the center-most panel is always different from the others (despite them all being processed with identical settings). Â It's like a square smog bank in the middle of the mosaic.
At first I thought this might be a peculiarity with the subject (M31), or with 9 panels being used, but when I built a mosaic using one raw sub from each panel, it worked beautifully.
I believe I am using all the proper mosaic settings based on the excellent tutorial from Mabula, but it still is not working right. Â Any ideas what I may be doing wrong?
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What are the settings that you have used exactly? Those for tabs 4, 5 and 6 are most important here.
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Thanks, Wouter
@wvreeven I used the settings noted in here, but I just pulled these from the application (my last attempt is still open):
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4:
descriptors: pentagons
scale stop: 10 (also tried 15)
Dynamic distortion correction ON
Same camera/optics OFF
Registration mode mosaic
registration model projective
All other settings are default
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5: Â All default
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6:
Integrate: average
Weights: equal
2nd degree LNC, 10 iterations
MBB set to 10% (also tried 15)
Frame 5 (the center) was chosen as the reference.
All other settings are default.
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Each panel consists of 55 subs, stacked separately in APP with all the appropriate calibration frames. Â The center frame looks fine on its own, it's only after the integration that it seems to be mangled.
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@mountainair Thanks that's very useful info. I forgot to ask about tab 3, sorry.
If you haven't changed the setting in tab 3 then try setting the number of stars to 2500 or 3000. Sometimes an even higher number is needed!
4:
set scale start to 5, scale stop to 12 or higher
choose triangles
5:
mode: advanced
6:
That should all be fine
Please try that (leave all other settings as you had them) and let us know if that worked.
@wvreeven Excellent, thank you. Â I will kick off another attempt with these settings in a few minutes.
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Note, in step 3 for mosaics with lots of stars I always try around 5,000. Â I think it was consistently picking up close to that in each panel.
@wvreeven This seems to have worked! Â Now which one of those variables helped, I wonder?
I had already tried scale stop 15, so I don't think it was changing from 10 to 12.
I had tried quadrilaterals and pentagons, and all the panels registered OK (I'm assuming the weird thing in the middle wasn't a registration issue, because I wasn't missing any panels elsewhere). Â So, I don't think it was the triangles setting.
I suspect it was the normalization mode change from regular to advanced. Â If I get time I'll test that, but right now I have an image to process.
Thank you, @wvreeven!!
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Glad that it helped! It must have been the combination of triangles and using the advanced mode but that latter change probably had the biggest influence.
