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.
Using a trial license with a small set of images I was able to successfully complete an integration and do some post-process work.
Now I'm using a larger data set of 130 images with flat, bias and darks. During my 1st attempt, the stacking process stopped at "Creating Lights stack...Completed 30%". I thought it was just going slowly and I went to bed. The next morning it was still like that.
2nd attempt, it stopped in exactly the same place.
Has anyone else had this happen?
FYI: My Macbook's HD is VERY full, with only about 8GB free space. The data and working directory are on an external drive that has over 400GB free space.
(Before you suggest I make more space on the internal...it's not possible. I've even deleted some things that I need. There is just no more room!)
As a followup: I tried a smaller piece of the same data, only 5 images. It completed successfully, but paused for quite a while at the same place...then finished.
Is it possible that the process simply takes a VERY long time? How long should it take for a large set of images?
I've got a 2015 macbook pro, with 8GB of ram. APP cpu usage is set to maximum.
Using a trial license with a small set of images I was able to successfully complete an integration and do some post-process work.
Now I'm using a larger data set of 130 images with flat, bias and darks. During my 1st attempt, the stacking process stopped at "Creating Lights stack...Completed 30%". I thought it was just going slowly and I went to bed. The next morning it was still like that.
2nd attempt, it stopped in exactly the same place.
Has anyone else had this happen?
FYI: My Macbook's HD is VERY full, with only about 8GB free space. The data and working directory are on an external drive that has over 400GB free space.
(Before you suggest I make more space on the internal...it's not possible. I've even deleted some things that I need. There is just no more room!)
Hi Cheetah,
I have encountered this problem myself. But I have a clue on where the problem is.
If the integration is at 30%, the images to be integrated are all loaded with registration and normalization parameters applied. At this point, the LNC module will start if turned on, or integration should immediately start. My guess is that LNC is turned on and that the LNC calculation does not finish, which should point to bug in that module that I need to fix. Is my assumption correct that you enabled LNC?
If you didn't enable LNC, then I really need more information:
- I would need output of the console (last several hundred lines up until integration starts at 30%)
- screesnhot of the bottom frame list panel with all analytical results
This information could really help in understanding what's happening.
Integration on an external drive is perfectly possible, but you will need to be aware that MacOS doesn't natively support writing on NTFS or FAT drives very well. I had all sorts of problems with my macbook 2016 and a NTFS formatted external drive (formatted with windows 7) using MacOS's native support for the NTFS file system. Only after installing paragon NTFS the problems were solved. So perhaps, this could be the problem that you face, an incompatibility between MacOS and your external drive. Can you write files to the external drive without problems from your Macbook, if so, then disregard this option.
Kind regards,
Mabula
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As a followup: I tried a smaller piece of the same data, only 5 images. It completed successfully, but paused for quite a while at the same place...then finished.
Is it possible that the process simply takes a VERY long time? How long should it take for a large set of images?
I've got a 2015 macbook pro, with 8GB of ram. APP cpu usage is set to maximum.
I assume then, that there is abug with LNC if you turned that on. Else, I suspect write problems to the external drive.
No the process shouldn't take very long. Integration of 400 16MP RGB frames only took about 70 minutes with 4 CPU cores and 4GB of memory:
See test 4 for results on both an M2 SSD as a conventional SATA 600 drive. Integration time is almost the same.
So you do encounter problematic behaviour which needs to be solved. Cna you share the extra information that I asked for in my previous post?
Kind regards,
Mabula
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Hi there. Thank you for your response!
I switched the external hard drive from USB 2 to Thunderbolt. That sped things up. I also removed about half of the frames (which were bad and I hadn't realized it). The processing completed in about 4 hours.
Yes, LNC was enabled.
I've done several more batches of photos. All seem to pause at the 30% mark, but then continue quite quickly to 100%.
Perhaps I should start a new thread, but is APP suitable to Lunar photography? I tried processing images with NO stars and the process stopped. Is there a way to make this work?
Hi @cheetah,
While LNC is running, progress stays at 30% so that's normal. If you are using a lot of frames, then LNC can take very long. I probably will adjust and upgrade LNC to solve this within the coming months. When LNC is finished (check in console) then the progress indicator will start running again indeed.
No, lunar photography are planetary is not possible (yet). That requries a different registration engine. It's something for the future to implement. APP will only register images with stars currently. The star locations are what APP uses for registration.
Kind regards,
Mabula
