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.
Hello everyone,
I’m new to APP and just started doing Narrowband pictures. And, of course, I’m starting with a mosaic. Never did that before as well. I wanted to preview the first 3 panels I finished and ask myself, how do I separate the narrowband since I took them with a duoband filter with an OSC. I’m getting a little confused with all the file management in APP though it seems to be great. What I did so far: didn’t separate the narrowband, just for testing. Put the lights in 3 sessions, for each panel I did that night. The result was ok, it stitched a great picture together. But now I want to process the Ha and OIII separately.
If there’s a tutorial out there already I may have missed it. Maybe someone can point me into the right direction.
CS, Sven
Hi Sven @easylink,
Thank you very much for posting your question and welcome to the APP forum !
Regarding the Ha and OIII extraction of your douband filter data:
1) load your images including all your calibration frames
2) go to 0) RAW/FITS and change the Bayer & Trans CFA algorithm to one of the Ha O3 algorithms.
Ha-O3 color will make a color image a bit better than using the default Adaptive Airy Disc algo. Adaptive Airy Disc is the best algo for regular OSC data. For your data with a duo narrowband filter, use the Ha-O3 color algo for the best color result of both Ha & O3 together.
Ha-O3 mono will create a monochrome black& white result of both the Ha & O3 data
Ha-O3 extract Ha will extract only the Ha data to a monochrome results, and use extract O3 to get the O3 data.
3) To get both the Ha and O3 extracted data, set it to extract Ha and make your integration.
4) then go to 0) Raw/Fits and change the algorithm to extract O3. APP will inform you that the data needs to be renormalized.
5) Simply go to 6) integrate again and push integrate. APP will normalize the O3 data and make your O3 result.
Let me know if this helps 😉
For your information and any others doing DUO/TRIPLE/QUAD Narrowband processing, the next APP release 2.0.0-beta39 will have many improvements for processing the data. We are adding new algorithms for SII-H-beta as well.
Mabula
Thank you Mabula, for your explanations. So I start with the project from the start like I did before, just with a different algorithm?
Hi Sven @easylink,
Indeed, start at the beginning with loading your lights and calibration frames and before starting any processing, set the desired demosaic algorithm in 0) RAW/FITS first. Once you have set the algorithm, you can already check what happens with your image data when you double click a light frame in the frame list panel. If you set it to HaO3 color, then APP will show you a color image. If you set it to HaO3 extract Ha, you will see the black and white H-alpha data when you double click on a light in the frame list.
Let me know if all is clear now 😉
Mabula
