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'm not finding the answer to this question but no doubt it has been addressed many times. Working with narrowband images from separate sessions Ha, OIII and SII such that the integrations are slightly misaligned. When I attempt to RGB of HSL combine, I get the bit level and size mismatch error. Solved this once before but lost again. What's the process to get these three (or four) integrated images registered such that they can go through color combine? Computer limitations require that each filter be processed separately.
Suggest you reload your narrowband channel integrations as Lights then run through Star Analysis, Registration an Normalisation then either Save the Normalised frames or proceed to Integration where you will have the ability to adjust the framing/cropping.
Still stuck on this. I've generated 3 6panelmosaics, Ha, Oiii and Sii. Each panel was stacked before making the narrowband mosaic. All three mosaics look good. Using 'combine RGB' under tools, I then add each mosaic and always get
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' The images are not compatible for making a composite image.
The image dimensions in pixels are not the same for all input images,
and/or the bit depth of the images (16bit, 32bit floats/integers)
is not the same for all images.
You can fix this by loading the input images as lights
and then you need to register and normalize them.
Finally, in 5) NORMALIZE, save the normalized and registered images
which will be fully compatible for making a composite image.'
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Even after following those instructions to input each mosaic as a light then register, then normalize, then save. I can also successfully integrate the mosaics but then I just get an integrated monochrome similar to a luminance.
Hi Mike,
Sorry for the delay in replying.
Rereading your earlier post I believe I had understood that you had three, 6-panel mosaic image files, one each for Ha, SII and OIII, but that RGB Combine would not work for you. I believed that this was likely because the 3 mosaic files were not identically sized (pixel dimensions) and cosequently not star-aligned. Â
Was this original assumption correct?
Having followed those additional steps, do you now have 3 identically-sized image files, one for each of your three narrow-band channels?
If you switch between these three mosaic files, are the images star-aligned?
If there is a positive response to the latter two questions then you should now be in a position to use RGB Combine using one of the narrow-band options e.g. HSO 1.
I hope my original interpretaion of your status was correct and that this reply helps.
Regards
Mike
PS: You say 'I can also successfully integrate the mosaics but then I just get an integrated monochrome similar to a luminance'. Yes, I would expect this if on the Integrate tab you used the 'integrate per channel and all' option. If you were doing broadband imaging, this would be termed a super-luminance image as it incorporates the luminance data from the R, G and B channels into the L channel which should give a better signal to noise ratio compared with using solely the L data.
@mike94301Â
I've found that if you reload the integrations as lights and then run them through a full integration that fixes this problem completely. I've ran into it before.
Appreciate all the help, thank you. I did succeed using one method, will try others soon. I do see the error in my original approach. Method used was to process each of 6 panels thru RGB combine then integrate as a mosaic. Easy and quite happy with the results. 15 - 60sec lights in Ha Oii Sii for each of 6 panelss, Carbonstar150 2600mm. My final processing skills are novice level - I think muck more can be extracted.
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