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 lots and lots of subs as my setup is limited to 20s subs (defaulting to 10s). In order to reduce the overall integration time when I have hundreds (even close to 2000) of files, I do what was recommended here and process them in batches of roughly 200.
So now I have a small number of integration files. Easy enough to load them again as lights. My question is are there any parameters I should be setting apart from the defaults to maximize the results given I’m starting from files that have already been integrated (with defaults)?
For example, should I use average rather than median when integrating? Should I be removing light pollution, calibrating, etc the individual super subs (the integrated ~200 files) before loading them as lights for the final integration?
Thanks!
I would not ! post-process the 200subs stacks before integrating them into the superStack of all data.
I would make the individual 200sub stacks with automatic integration so average is used with optimal outlier rejection filters. I would enable Multi-Band-Blending on 10% to reduce stacking artefacts.
Then the superStack: also use automatic integration (depending on the amount of frames APP will use median or average automatically), advanced normalization in 5) and enable MBB again 😉
Mabula
Sounds like I'm on the right track then. Is there any benefit to changing the dynamic correction from same camera to distorted then on the super stack? Since these would be on multiple days as well as multiple sets on the same day. All are taken with the same setup, though.
Hi, I have successfully intergated stacks of 400 to 600 lights on my late2015 i7-6700 imac if you don't mind overnight processing this works fine. You can save time by skipping Local Normalization Correction and try adjusting parameters. Also it helps to do steps 0-4 (up to registration) first, then deselect worst subs and resume with Normalization & Integration. Overall the biggest bang for the buck would be a decent mount so your 20s limitation would be gone and you'd reach reasonable integration times. Second best would be to crank up amplification/ISO a step or two - with 400 subs you should be able to reduce noise by two steps: I used to work with a Sony A7II and ISO 3200 and 20 to 30 s subs.
cheers,
jochen
I've done overnight processing before as well. In my case I'm not able to change out the mount but I appreciate your suggestion 🙂 I usually blink my subs to remove the worst before I go into APP. The quality measurement tends to be very similar across all the files.
