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. Brand new to APP. I have almost 13 hours collected on the Cone Nebula and Christmas Cluster.
I've been using DSS and PI.
I think I'll like APP more for 'scoring' and stacking.
I'm watching Youtube tutorials and going step by step.
My first question is which algorithm to choose for my Cone/Christmas data.
My camera is the ZWO 2600 mc pro and ALL images taken using the IDAS NBZ filter.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Robert
For regular datasets you can just use the standard settings. Load in your lights and calibration frames, go to tab 6 and press the integrate button. If you're going to use narrowband filters or will be doing mosaics and such, you'll have to change more settings.
Vincent thanks! Truthfully I've been into astrophotography for 4.5 months and don't even know if the IDAZ NBZ is a 'regular' dataset or narrowband? I'll google and see.
OK, just googled. The IDAS NBZ is listed as dual narrowband. Can you suggest settings for this filter? Well if you know them off the top of your head. I can begin googling
that too.
Thanks again,
Robert
That looks to be a dual narrowband filter yes. So for that kind of data you'd need to use the "extract HA" and "extract OIII" algorithms, you can choose those in tab 0 and then you'll get mono Ha and OIII images from that data which you can then combine later.
