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 think I need to move to filters or drive 100km to darker sky.
Imaging from a dark-ish hill in the city, stock Nikon D780
60 frames x 30sec iso400 + 20 each D,F,DF,B
Single (raw) frame and a stack of 44 selected below.
Any processing just erases the nebula.
Any brief tips? (i.e. keep working on the processing, or give up and get the Ha/OIII LPR filter)
Thanks,
Mijo, Vancouver
Hi Mijo,
I am no expert at all and I am blessed with not to much light pollution.
But, if i look at your frames, they dont look like a lost case. If these are not processed in any way, they are really showing that there is enough signal. And thats not the brightest object you could shoot, the veil is very faint in my images too, even with less light pollution. You should collect longer. 22mins isnt much at all. Go for at least 2hr integration time. I would say out of my experience.
I think it may even be possible to expose a little longer! The single frame doesnt look too bright for me.
I have attached an aoproach of mine. Single frame was iso3200, 60s @ f3.5
Integration time about 2hrs. (stacked and processed)
Well, i know i got way better conditions than you. But even that is not much to get a good integration from this target.
If you go and get a lp filter, you will need hrs more time to collect and some minutes to expose your single frames. So i would try to see what you can do without. Get some hrs of collecting some frames at 60s. And maybe get some brighter target, there are plenty...
Hi Sebastian,
Thanks very much for sharing the sub and stack, and the advice to persist.
It's well worth it to invest 2-3h of 60s exposures if your experience suggests this will improve quality.
I was concerned noise and signal were increasing equally.
For now, I'd like to see what's possible with the DLSR and no filters until I'm proficient with capture and processing techniques.
Then move to filters down the road.
Many thanks and best wishes for your own imaging projects!
Mijo
Fixed noise will increase, but for that you need to dither while capturing data. Random noise remains random and can therefore improve with more data. However, exposing very short can be an issue if your signal is in the read noise of the sensor, so as long as possible is always a good aim.
