Mar 28 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta40 will be released in 7 days.
It did take a long time to have the work finished on this and it will have a major performance boost of 30-50% over 2.0.0-beta39 from calibration to integration. We extensively optimized many critical parts of APP. All has been tested to guarantee correct optimizations. Drizzle and image resampling is much faster for instance, those modules have been completely rewritten. Much less memory usage. LNC 2.0 will be released which works much better and faster than LNC in it's current state. And more, all will be added to the release notes in the coming weeks...
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
Hi Mabula. @mabula-admin
Object is IC1805 Heart Nebula, I have 70 frames with 500mm (Askar FRA500, ASI2600MC) and 40 frames with 350mm (same with reducer). The 500mm is completely enclosed by the 350mm frame, so not a real "mosaic". Without filter.
My first try was to stack all frames in one run. Parameter (the non-standard)
0) Adaptive airy disc
1) all lights with the correct calibration files
3) 3000 stars
4) good 500mm sub as ref, mode normal/mosaic (tried both, I see no difference), DDC on
5) neutralise background on
6) integrate all, LNC 2nd 3 iter, MBB 20%
--> Stack had the edges of the 500mm frame clearly visible.
I tried to increase MBB (up to 50%) and LNC (4th 10 iter) --> maybe slightly better, but edge of 500mm frame clearly visible.
Note: Same with the HaO3 frames, and the S2O3 frames.
I then integrated the 350mm and 500mm separately (both are nicely stacked) and then tried to integrate the 2 stacks.
I used the 350mm stack as reference (read this somewhere) and the same parameters as above.
--> edges clearly visible. I tried a lot:
- MBB up to 50%, LNC up to 4th 10 iter
- I cropped for both frames the outer 75 pixel away, made lpc for both
--> Nothing helped. The lpc made the edges a bit less pronounced, but still clearly visible.
I then (by accident) had the 500mm stack as reference
--> Wow, no edge. At least I cannot see anything. Much better smoothening of background.
See here the results (boosted autostretch in PixInsight):
- upper line: 500mm as ref, lower line 350mm as ref
- left: nocrop, so the 2 stacks right after integration, no lpc
- right: crop (75 pixel on each side) and lpc
I went back to MBB 20% and LNC 4th 3 iter --> same good results.
My questions:
- It seems that the 500mm frame must be the ref. Is there an explanation / logic ?
- Any other of the parameters, I should change?
- For me, the integration of the non-cropped, non-lpc stacks looks as good as the version based on crop+lpc.
--> Anything against going without crop/lpc (less work 😉 - Any idea, how I can make the direct (one step) integration work?
I have: 70 (500mm f/5.6) + 40 (350mm f/3.9) RGB frames à 60sec, 90+47 HaO3 frames à 180sec, 170+77 S2O3 frames à 180sec.
--> Is it okay with these number of frames to do the 2-step approach?
Thank you and best regards.
Michael
PS: I found the recommendation to use the wider field as reference here, from Mabula: https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/main-forum/best-practices-preferred-settings-for-stacking-and-integrating-sessions-that-combine-widefield-image-with-multiple-areas-imaged-with-longer-focal-length/#post-23954
--> Is there a difference now in the beta-39 ?
Addendum: For dualband HaO3 and S2O3, it was necessary to crop the 500mm inner frame, otherwise there were some red edges. I cropped 100 pixel on each side, to remove any dither/drizzle artefacts. Maybe 100 is too much - I dither only 10 pixels.
Hi Michael @michaelacg,
Thank you very much for your post and questions.
1) I can not directly offer an explanation for that without seeing the data in detail myself. But from my experience, it will probably have to do with normalization of the data relatively to the chosen reference. Maybe the 500 frame is better for that.
2) To actually reduce staking artefacts, you want lower MBB, so maybe only 5%. Make the 500mm stack with 5% MBB and also the 350 stack with 5%, maybe it will be much better 😉
3) Cropping and LPC are only needed when the data is not great in terms of stacking artefacts or light pollution. If the data already looks good, LPC and cropping can really be left outside of processing 😉
4) For the direct integration, I would choose the 500mm as reference, because more resolution. Use advanced normalization, MBB maybe 10-20%, and I would start with LNC 1st degree to see what that gives. 2-step should work fine as well.
Regarding different focal lengths: there is no golden rule here, it all depends on how the fields overlap of your data 😉 You need to try references with both focal lenghts and experiment, it will learn you what matters here.
Mabula
@michaelacg in my experience with my L-quad filter, WO pleiades 68mm FL 260mm and the 294MC pro data of 4h and 8h of my new 2600MC.
I captured the M45. What I did to combine the 2 session the RGB (L-QUAD enhance) i use all light frames in the session 1 of my 294 camera and all lights of 2600 in the session 2. Tab 0, airy adaptive disc.
Than do the standard steps, in registration I do not use DDC, in tab 6 I did intergrate all session in 1. MBB 10%, LNC 1 by 3.
Make sure you remove the bad frames.
About the S2HB, you can use multi NB extraction in beta 39
