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.
I would really appreciate some guidance here.
I shot a 2x1 panel mosaic of NGC 7000. Â Both panels came out well, but for some reason when I stitch them together in mosaic mode in APP the bottom panel turns out very milky. Â It's obviously a normalization issue. Â That individual panel is perhaps slightly milkier, but it seems that way (I think) mostly because of the increased star count and not because it was encroaching on a light dome (these subs finished before that).
I've uploaded the two panels to the MountainAir-NormalizationIssue folder on FileStation.
Here's the result:
Thanks in advance!
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A few observations:
- The auto-stretch in APP exacerbates the problem; the mosaic doesn't look as bad in PixInsight, but still far from desirable.
- I took the individual panels through the ABE process in PixInsight with the normalization checkbox checked (ABE worked no worse than my quick DBE attempt in this case).
- I took the panels back to APP and stitched them together. Â The effect was less pronounced, but easily still visible.
- Opening the mosaic with PI's default autostretch didn't look as bad.
- Running ABE again, I was able to substantially reduce the milkiness effect. Â It's not perfect, but much better and may be usable.
I confess to not being as familiar with APP's post-stacking tools. Â I'm sure I could do most of this there, but there still may be some setting or workflow that I missed. Â Or, maybe this is an opportunity to train APP's mosaic normalization process using my individual panels.
BTW, I should have said I follow all the standard guidelines for mosaics in APP, including using Advanced mode in Normalization. Â Any ideas on what I may have missed? Â Most of my other mosaics turn out fine from a normalization perspective.
Thanks in advance!
When you make a mosaic, it's always best to first make it and then do the LPC correction. Correcting the panels beforehand may not work very well, though they look good, the background can still be different per panel.
