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 am thinking of upgrading from an Ha-modified T3i to a dedicated astrocam. But, I would like to better understand what this buys me in the final image. I shoot in mostly B7+ skies and stack in Astro Pixel Processor. APP’s SNR per RGB channel typically is 1-2 dB.
If I move to a dedicated astrocam, how much of an increase in SNR can I expect? Example below compares the Full Well Capacity and Read Noise of my T3i to the SvBony 405cc.
FWC RN. Dynamic Range (FWC/RN)
T3i. 21Ke. 2.9e. 7200
SV405 63Ke. 1.2e.
The SvBony is 3x better at FWC, and about 2.5x better RN. Does this translate to an SNR increase of about 5dB? I know I will have improved dynamic range, but does that also lead to SNR improvement? Light pollution really limits what I can cleanly process.
Thanks in Advance!
Edited by martinontheroad,
Hi Martin @martinontheroad,
Thank you very much for your question.
First of all, SNR or Signal to Noise Ratio can be reported in a lot of different ways. We do not report it in decibel or dB. We simply report the signal to noise ratio, so Signal divided by Noise or Signal/Noise. This way was thought to me by during my astrophysics studies. We hardly used the dB notation.
See here for more explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio
Decibel is logarithmic. Our SNR value is linear. So SNR of 10 in APP is 10x better than SNR of 1 in APP. For me, this is much more intuitive than using Decibel for SNR. Decibel is better with huge dynamic range between signal and noise...
Now, regarding your question, this is very hard to give you a good answer, because the resulting SNR depends on many aspects not relating to your camera's sensor. Like the object itself that you image, or the sky conditions.
You indicate that the SvBony is 3x better at full well capacity, meaning the pixels can collect much more photons before being saturated and the read noise is 2,5 better... but for the astrocamera, this depends on the gain which you use of course. Depending on the gain the FWC changes as well...
Generally speaking, I would expect the SvBony to outperfrom the T3i clearly with the bigger wells and lower read noise in general. I would advise you to use low gain with the SvBony and longer exposures when compared to exposure times with your T3i as well to use the well capacity 😉
How this will translate to typical SNR with your results with the SvBony is still hard to tell because we have many other noise factors, like the dark current of the sensors and the shot noise of the signal, so it is not a simpel calculation. The amount of dithering between your subs will also influence the SNR of your integrations... but I would certainly expect the SNR will be better with the SvBony 😉 and you will clearly see this visually in your results.
Mabula
