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'm new to APP and did my first mosaic. 3 panel from OSC, Integrated each panel, then did the mosaic. I have no idea what setting caused this. Any help greatly appreciated.
 Dave
@cheman Hi David,
Can you tell us what settings you used for creating the mosaic in tabs 3 to 6 please?
Thanks, Wouter
@cheman In tab 5 set mode to advanced and try again.
Two more comments that are not related to the strange shape of the mosaic. In tab 3 you can probably lower the amount of stars to 3000. That will speed up star analysis. In tab 6 you probably don't need LNC, which also will save time.
Please let me know if advanced mode in tab 5 solved your issue.
Wouter
Hi Wouter
the setting change corrected the distortion but I am still getting an uneven blend as seen here. Any suggestions
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@cheman Hi David,
Great, I am glad that that helped.
Regarding the uneven blend, did you perform any post-processing on the individual panels before creating the mosaic, like remove light pollution or calibrate background? Did you only register the panels against each other or also normalize them?
Wouter
Wouter,
to be honest I am not sure. Its entirely possible I did sometning different to one panel. Or did something incorrectly. Being new to the software, I find it hard to get used to but am making progress. Learning it bit by bit. Is there a recomended workflow start to finish with OSC data. Then taking those panels and integrating into a mosaic. I am finding that APP does the best job so far of aligning my images, stars look better than my previous program. But after watching some videos, my head is spinning. I would like a written workflow for OSC data, and once I have it figured out, I will write myself a step by step of best practices. All the different software I have used are all so different in the user interfaces. thanks for your helpÂ
Dave
Wouter,
to be honest I am not sure. Its entirely possible I did sometning different to one panel. Or did something incorrectly. Being new to the software, I find it hard to get used to but am making progress. Learning it bit by bit. Is there a recomended workflow start to finish with OSC data. Then taking those panels and integrating into a mosaic. I am finding that APP does the best job so far of aligning my images, stars look better than my previous program. But after watching some videos, my head is spinning. I would like a written workflow for OSC data, and once I have it figured out, I will write myself a step by step of best practices. All the different software I have used are all so different in the user interfaces. thanks for your helpÂ
Dave
@cheman Dave,
I'm afraid that for now the only written procedures can be found on this forum. But they are scattered all around the place and it will require some searching to collect them all together. However, with the upcoming APP 2.0.0 (currently in beta4) a written manual will be provided that should help you out.
Wouter
Wouter
a couple iterations of remove light pollution and calibrate background to the mosaic, I was able to get the image even. I thought it would get it even during the creation of the mosaic, and maybe it can, but not sure how to do that
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@cheman Looks really nice like that!
If there are strong gradients or difference in light pollution in the various panels of the mosaic, then you'll need to reduce the light pollution in them manually. APP cannot guess what signal in the panels is wanted and what not. Minor differences can be compensated for by APP in the normalization phase (tab 5), which always is performed automatically when doing an integration.
@wvreeven Thanks for the info.  So I should remove gradients and light pollution from each panel stack, then create mosaic? Is that the best process? and then the differences would be small enough for normalization(tab 5) to correct.  If so I will give that a try with the same data
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@cheman It looks like, yes, in this case that would be the preferred process. It is hard to tell though because it is unclear how you processed the three panels before trying to create the mosaic. Keep in mind that this is not always the preferred process since processing the panels separately isn't always necessary. It really depends on the data.
@wvreeven Hi..the mosaic, I used only the panel stacks that had the settings I posted, I did not do anything after integrating to a mosaic. I can verify this as I restacked each panel. So maybe that will shed some light on why the top panel(panel number 1) was different from the rest. Mosaic was registered to panel 2(middle panel.  Liking the software more and more as I use it.
