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.
It would be great to have an option to process subs from every panel of a mosaic all at once, and have APP save each panel's integrations separately, without combining them as a mosaic. Currently, I have to process each panel's subs separately which is time consuming.
I'd like to be able to load ALL subs of ALL panels of a mosaic as lights and have APP automatically process them and save their integrations individually. Then, I can remove gradients of each of these saved panel integrations before creating the final mosaic.
Does APP already have a way to do this? If not, is there a formal procedure for submitting this as a feature request? Thanks!
@rixon Have you tried loading the lights per panel in separate sessions and then selecting "intergrate per session" for Multi-Session options in tab 6 and use all other configuration options necessary for mosaics?
Hi Wouter, Thanks! That worked great! It would be even better if all subs could be added all at once and that APP could sort out which went into their respective individual sessions if there was an agreed upon naming convention for the panels (e.g. Panel1, Panel2, Panel3). But this is still a huge time saver, so thank Mabula for that.Â
Hi Wouter, So after using the above technique to produce separate integrations, it's not quite what I'm after. APP still takes a lot of time mapping the mosaic even though it doesn't combine the panels into a final one image mosaic. Would love it if mosaic registration wasn't part of this process. If I remove that mosaic setting in registration, it tries to register all panels as one image and of course, fails.Â
Any other ideas?
@rixon Yeah mosaic registration can take a long time. I'm afraid that in this case you need to process the panels individually.
Perhaps an option "register per session" could be added that registers all lights in session 1, all lights in session 2 etc without cross-registering between sessions. @mabula-admin, what do you think?
The best way for now, is that you really need to make individual panels first yourself with normal registration and then afterwards combine those with mosaic registration. When making the individual panels, it is strongly advised to use MBB and LNC 1 st degree(not higher degrees!) to get rid of possible stack artefacts at borders. It is also strongly advised to not use any gradient removal tool like our Remove Light Pollution tool on the individual mosaic panels. Gradient removal tools never work perfectly and can in fact complicate gradients in such a way that when you create the mosaic the correction for illumination differences becomes more difficult 😉 This is from my own experience.
With regard to combining all subs as once to a mosaic, this is on our ToDo list to make possible which means i will completely rewrite the mosaic algortihms for this to make that possible in a smart and efficient way.
Hope this helps and explains it for now?
Mabula
With regard to combining all subs as once to a mosaic, this is on our ToDo list to make possible which means i will completely rewrite the mosaic algortihms for this to make that possible in a smart and efficient way.
Great, thanks very much in advance!
Thank you Mabula! Looking forward to the rewrite. Good to know about your experience and recommendation with gradient removal too.
Hi Mabula,
Thanks for the advice. I'm curious, why not use higher than 1st degree LNC?  I use LNC when I shoot Alt/Az on a Dobsonian with no tracking, so I get field rotation and some drift, so even with Flats the registered frames have various differing gradients. It seems to help, but I don't know how to understand when and what Degrees and number of iterations to use.  How am I to understand, without excessive experimentation, what to set them to based on my data?
Higher degrees and iterations get complicated fast and slows down the process. Usually it's not required to go higher, if the data has a lot of different gradients, then it is a challenge on its own for sure. I think the best bet then, would be to try to use the LP tool if multiple iterations. The algorithms in APP do expect some kind of logical gradient so that may be why it's not the best solution in your case and does require experimentation.
Hi Mabula,
Thanks for the advice. I'm curious, why not use higher than 1st degree LNC?  I use LNC when I shoot Alt/Az on a Dobsonian with no tracking, so I get field rotation and some drift, so even with Flats the registered frames have various differing gradients. It seems to help, but I don't know how to understand when and what Degrees and number of iterations to use.  How am I to understand, without excessive experimentation, what to set them to based on my data?
Hi @readyjetty,
Using LNC higher then 1st degree on the single mosaic panels can actually make problems worse. The LNC algortihm is not a perfect algortihm and thus the higher LNC degrees can actually introduce unwanted gradients. The LNC 1st degree is in that sense safe since it will only introduce/correct linear gradients.
Mabula
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