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.
Hi everyone,
we are planning a parallel multi session with different cameras and lenses (all around 50mm on APC and full frame). No tracking so we will have a lot of images with relatively short exposures (about 5 seconds each). Can APP handle image session from different cameras with images that slightly differ in size and resolution? What would be the best workflow to stack several hundert images per session to one final image?Â
Hi Mario,
Yes, APP is able to combine images from all kinds of sensors and FOV's. Important is that all these have their own calibration data. The amount of data you're talking about is tricky though, in the sense that it would require a good, modern system with loads or memory, SSD etc.
Best thing in any case is to first make the integrations per setup, if that entails e.g. 1000 images per integration, chop that up into smaller parts (like 250 on a good system) and make that into a nice, processed linear result, calibrated and all. Do this for each setup. Then you can load those integrated results as lights again and proceed as normal to register and integrate that.
Do note that a very short exposure would require a fast lens, as the signal-to-noise might get quite low otherwise. I think it will be ok, but maybe do a few test shots first to see if APP processes all fine.
Hi Vincent,
thanks for the advice. So I set the "save calibrated images" option for all the sets and just calibrate, or just generate a "final" image per set / session and than in a second step integrate the results from the previous integrations into the final integration with each set (from each camera) as one session and with the split up integrations (like sets of 4x250 of 1000 images per camera) as images within one session, right?
For the short exposures - I'm aware of that. But for this situation (4 cameras in 3 different locations and all without a tracker) we will crank up the ISO a little and see what we get out of that.Â
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Hi Vincent,
thanks for the advice. So I set the "save calibrated images" option for all the sets and just calibrate, or just generate a "final" image per set / session
A final image is fine, just keep it linear. You can do it in multiple ways like saving the calibrated frames and then combine those with the rest. Issue with that is likely so much data that it might not be feasible, hence why a final integration is easier to process together and the quality between the workflows will not be dramatically different.
and than in a second step integrate the results from the previous integrations into the final integration with each set (from each camera) as one session and with the split up integrations (like sets of 4x250 of 1000 images per camera) as images within one session, right?
Correct!
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For the short exposures - I'm aware of that. But for this situation (4 cameras in 3 different locations and all without a tracker) we will crank up the ISO a little and see what we get out of that.Â
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Ok, keep us posted, interesting session that will be. 🙂
Good luck! Vincent
A final image is fine, just keep it linear.
That means just save the unstretched version of the stacked image, right?Â
Yes, so APP will do that automatically. When you press the "Integrate" button, APP saves the integrated result to the work-directory as a lineair, integrated fits.
