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,
I noticed that when I shoot targets below ~50 degrees with my color camera I get directional color fringing on the stars due to atmospheric dispersion. I get the same thing when shooting planets, but stacking software like autostakkert does excellent color plane registration to correct for atmospheric dispersion… but it’s only for planets or other very bright objects.
In APP, I’ve turn on the “Align Channels” feature in the calibration tab with no noticeable effect. The stars appear to have about the same amount of fringing with or without this checked. Perhaps it’s for a different purpose than aligning OSC channels? Or do I need to save the aligned channels separately or can I just check this and go all the way to Integration in one step and it should all work. I’m trying to figure out why it doesn’t work for me.
One curious thing for me is when I stack with it turned off and then I stack with it turned on it doesn’t recalibrate, it just goes right to integration. I would think we need to re-calibrate when I switched between align channels checked and unchecked since it’s in the calibration tab.
How do I get APP to align miss registered color planes in OSC captures, due to atmospheric dispersion?
I noticed that if I do separate the channels with PIPP and then process it as separate RGB channels. The “Align channels” feature does work. But it doesn’t appear to work if I just process my data as an OSC capture.
Thanks.
@readyjetty im not saying this is the answer, but I have to save out the calibrated files when checking the ‘align channels’ button.
Then integrate using the aligned saved calibrated files.
Yep, Andy is correct. We can make this easier perhaps or more clear in the future.
Thanks for the quick responses.
Yes, it's certainly not clear what one loses and what options don't work if you just click Integrate. I just load up everything, click my preferences, and hit Integrate. Makes me wonder what else I'm missing there.
OK, so I need to do this in two stages:
1) Stage one, load files, select "Align Channels" in Calibration tab, and select "SAVE (calibrated) Light Frames"
2) Stage two: Do I need to load calibrated light frames as a new stacking set of originals, or can I just click "Integrate" right after Stage 1 is done? Do I need to load the calibrated lights as a new set of original lights? Not sure what to do here. If it's a completely new stacking job with new calibrated lights, do I still need bias/darks? Do I set anything different in the settings (ex: I force debayer in the load normally as it gets the pattern wrong somethings, I expect to still do that, right?)
OK, I tried saving calibration frames and then integrated. It appears to have just integrated with the uncalibrated frames... so that didn't work.
So then I loaded the saved calibration frames as my new lights, also loaded my bias frames and hit "Integrate", it analyzed stars skipping the calibration step, but didn't produce a result. It stops after analyzing the stars even though I said "Integrate".
Not sure what I'm doing wrong here now.... saving calibrated frames and using them broke the ability for me to integrate.
The last text of the status windows said:
12:27:43 - FRAME DETAILS UPDATER: File D:\APPOutput\M13ComaCorrectorTest_00047-cal.fits was loaded before, collecting already gathered details...
12:27:43 - FRAME DETAILS UPDATER: updated succesfully
12:27:43 - CONSTRUCT FRAME DETAILS LIST: starting...
12:27:43 - CONSTRUCT FRAME DETAILS LIST: sorting frames...
12:27:43 - CONSTRUCT FRAME DETAILS LIST: Fixing file arrays...
12:27:43 - CONSTRUCT FRAME DETAILS LIST: numbering frames...
12:27:43 - CONSTRUCT FRAME DETAILS LIST: adding frame marks...
12:27:44 - CONSTRUCT FRAME DETAILS LIST: finished
I ran a completely new APP session (quit and restarted) using the Calibrated lights and still the color planes were mis-registered. I can compare to when I first separate them into R,G,B with PIPP and stack as separate complete R, G, B captures and that aligns the planes, but so far no luck. Can someone detail the process steps from start to finish for OSC?
I expect I may be losing something using PIPP to separate my OSC data into separate R,G,B datasets, but perhaps that is the best method afterall....
@readyjetty once you have loaded your flats/darks/bias/dark flats, assigned them to the lights, ticked ‘align channels’ and selected save directory, then press ‘save calibrated lightframes’ the resulting NEW saved files will have an extender on the file name -cal.
once that process is complete, those files will now be fully calibrated, debayered, and the three RGB channels aligned. it does work! No other calibration steps needed.
you then clear the app file stack and load the new -cal files as light files. You do not want to load any other bias etc. its all done in the previous step.
You can move straight onto analyse stars/normalise/integrate.
