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.
I've been following this tutorial..
..I have split the Sulphur, Ha and Oxygen channels. I have three seperate files. Each file was made using the exact same data sets (two sessions worth), using the exact same settings, and yet the Ha channel is askew.
I've tried rotating it 1 degree and it appreas to be good, but when I use rgb combine it looks like a ghost image because the one channel doesn't line up. Everything is just slightly off.
What would cause one channel to not be aligned with thr other two despite containing the same data and processed using the same settings?
I'm kind of at my wits end here. I'd appreciate any help, and I'm sure it's something stupidly easy I'm missing..
Bizarrely I'm not allowed to upload FITS files here (?), so here is my Dropbox containing the files, can someone have a look at it please and see what the deal is?
Dropbox File (Private or Invalid)
I forgot to add that when I take the three channels and try to combine them it says they aren't the same size and it doesn't work. So when I do a batch crop it WILL allow rgb combine to work, but obviously cropping doesn't align the three channels. The Ha channel is still askew.
Is there a way to align everything before I do a batch crop and rgb combine?
@jay6879 Hi,
Just load the integration results as lights (no calibration data), go to tab 4 and register them against each other. That will make APP align the images and give them the same dimensions. You can then save the registered frames at the bottom of tab 4 and load those into combine rgb.
HTH, Wouter
So I would load Ha, OIII and Sulphur as Session 1,2,3 accordingly as lights, and juat register them?
Ok! I'll give that a go tonight, I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure this out and if this works woo there will be another tool added to my knowledge of APP. I can use this going forward when combining any set of data, just make sure to register them so they are aligned and sized properly. I appreciate the help, I'll let you know how it goes!
Bizarrely I'm not allowed to upload FITS files here (?), so here is my Dropbox containing the files, can someone have a look at it please and see what the deal is?
Sorry for the late reply to this. To the top of every forum page there are upload instructions. We don't allow large uploads to the forum and we have a separate file server for that.
Having said that, I have downloaded your files and will have a look. Do the ones you made available contains the file that you rotated manually?
That did it! Much appreciated. I followed the video and my colors didn't look anything like his, mine were very muted, but that's something I'm sure I can figure out messing with sliders.
..I have split the Sulphur, Ha and Oxygen channels. I have three seperate files. Each file was made using the exact same data sets (two sessions worth), using the exact same settings, and yet the Ha channel is askew.
I had a look at the files that you uploaded. I think a meridian flip was involved when imaging. APP probably selected a light that was taken after the flip as reference and that resulted in an image that is rotated 180º wrt the OIII and SII images. Other than that I see no obvious differences.
Ahhh that makes sense. Is there a way to set what APP uses as the reference frame?
Regardless, it's good to know that you can register the images again and they'll be aligned nicely.
Is there a way to set what APP uses as the reference frame?
Yes there is. After loading the images, go to tab 3 and click "analyse stars". When it is done, go to tab 4 and select the file you want to be reference in the file list. Right click and select "set as reference" et voila!
Why would you want to do this? APP has very good internal algorithms to select the best frame as reference. In general you should not need to do this manually.
