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.
Hay everyone,
I am kind scratching my head about a potential issue that I might be having. Im trying to evaluate my HA lights, I'm trying to figure out why my background is so poor with my 180 sec and then all over the place with my 300 sec lights, I know that there are other issues going on, but my OIII and SII backgrounds are good, but the HA seems to be really poor, am I missing something, or is there something I should be doing to increase the quality of my background ? Does this represent a potential issue in my calibration frames maybe.....
Thank you
@thextra10th Hi Zachary,
Can you give us more information? What camera and what filters are you using? Where do you image from? Any potentially interfering light sources around? What object have you been imaging? What altitude did the object have when imaging? What Moon phase (I know that it shouldn't interfere with Ha but you never know)?
Please answer these questions and perhaps we will have more 🙂
Thanks, Wouter
@wvreeven sure…. I’m using the ZWO 294MM in bin 2 mode with the Explorer scientific ED127 with a .7x reducer/flattener. I am also using the Antilia 3.5nm filters. I have been working on M16; which is relatively low (about 15 degrees below the celestial equator) from my home front yard at about 44N latitude. I believe most of the data was acquired just after the meridian. I am in a Bortal 6 (est 19.04 mag ) zone for LP. When those images were taken I don’t remember the moon phase, I’ll need to look that up
I was out again last night capturing Ha data, and thinking about my issue, besides the challenges of such a low target and LP I’m thinking it was either not ideal seeing conditions or I just don’t have enough data….
Thank you
@wvreeven I think I figured out my issue...... based on what I did last night, and when un forecasted clouds helped to abruptly end my session, I normalized the images and looked at the graph and the background now looks great, until the clouds rolled in, still not as bad as the other screen shot, but Im thinking that the conditions were far from ideal to image in those sessions........ Ill be curious to what you think
@thextra10th It looks to me like you found the cause! Also, 180 sec is not very long for 3.5 nm filters.
Then another thing. You may want to increase that to 300 sec or even more, if your mount and guiding are able to handle that. It will increase the chance of catching an unforecasted cloud but when those remain absent you'll get a better SNR in your images and less chance that APP will complain about clipping pixels.
@wvreeven yeah, I ran 240 sec last night. My mount can handle the 300 sec no problem, I’m still trying to figure out the the best number to use….
