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.
Hi, I'm very very happy with APP : )
Recently, I started with narrow band imaging and got very good results using the tutorials.
I experimented with Bayer/X-Trans drizzle and found out, that despite having a limited amount of Frames (17), I got best results with drop size 0.5 and scale 2 compared to all other possibilities, including drop size 1 and scale 1.
But now, with a different set of lights, I get again quite smooth results but get a bit geometrical artefact in the image. This occurs only with scale 2. Why so ? Why exactly in than place ? The frames look all very similar only one being of much less contrast. I'll repeat this w/o this image but this result is not plausible to me.
Also I get a tiny linen like pattern, that's not as bad and is also slightly visible in drop 1 scale 1. But this is not so much a show stopper … but I hadn't this issue before.
All (successful results before and this problematic results) Images were made with the same camera, same dark and bias frames, different flats (Tair 3s 300mm lens vs. Jupiter 21M 200mm lens).
Any suggestions what could be wrong ? Thanks in Advance : )
Drizzle
I have to say I haven't seen those artefacts yet. But what I do know is that for proper drizzling, you do need well dithered and preferably undersampled data. Dithering meaning, 4-5 pixels and enough frames to be able to reconstruct the signal.
Thank you, the data is well dithered (more than 4-5 pixels).
I believe there is enough data because this are good frames with 16 minutes exposure @ ISO400.
In all other areas the result is super smooth. This is a local problem not being present in the lights. And, as the shape or position may change slightly, I do not belive that is originates from the data.
I've asked Mabula to chime in here as I've not seen that before specifically. I'll report when I know more.
Ok, so could you try to increase the droplet size to 0.6? Mabula also mentions 17 frames is not a lot of data for a droplet sizes of 0.5 so more data for that would definitely be better.
This solved the issue for me. Thank you very much : )
The first pic below might be interesting for you. This is the stretched difference between droplet 0.5 and 0.6 results.
It reveales many more artefacts I didn't notice at first glance. Only the top right one drew my attention.
Only the linen like pattern is still there (third pic) but I'm confident it will be gone with more frames.
Yes, that has everything to do with the amount of data. The more you have (well dithered), the better APP can "fill in" the pixels that are required. The regular pattern you see is an indication the algorithm worked well btw. 🙂 But with more data it can get rid of that as well.
@vincent-mod Thank You, you helped me alot : )
You're very welcome. 🙂 Good luck with your processing!
