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,
I am trying to shoot the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) from my Bortle 9 location.
This is a difficult target as it has a very bright core and a very dim outer ring.
The outer ring gives me no problems. I shot a sequence of 360 sec subs and the ring came out nicely.
The core, of course, was way overexposed.
At 60 sec it was still overexposed.
At 30 sec it was OK (42000 out of 65532 levels).
At 15 sec it was well underexposed (21000 out of 65532).
Now. If I stack 15 sec exposures in APP I get blown-out/overexposed core.
If I save un-stretched to tiff and stretch in Photoshop I can get reasonable result. But I cannot stretch properly in APP. No matter what I do the core is blown...
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Any suggestions?
Thanks!
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Max
I'm curious about this problem because stacking is supposed to average the image over the stacked amount of frames. So why does the output end up being almost indiscernible or in your case overexposed.
This would require an HDR processing, APP doesn't have this (yet). I would then take long exposures for the faint signal and shorter for the bright parts. HDR processing can then be used to combine that nicely, I did that in PI and I guess Photoshop would also be possible to some extent (I have no experience with that).
Ah.. OK. I just thought APP might help to equalize somehow.
My scope is too small to resolve any details in the core anyway..
Thanks!
