MAY 4 2026: APP 2.0.0-beta44 has been released !
New improved internal memory controls should now work on all computers
May 1 2026: APP 2.0.0-beta43 has been released !
Improved internal memory controls (much more stable and faster on big datasets), fixed CPU image viewer, fixed Narrowband extraction demosaic algortihms.
Apr 29 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta42 has been released !
New improved Normalization engine, Fixed random crashes in integration, fixed RGB Combine & Calibrate Star Colors, fixed Narrowband extraction algorithms, new development platform with performance gains, bug fixes in the tools, etc...
Apr 14 2026: Google Pay, Apple Pay & WeChat Pay added as payment options
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
I recently added an 8" SCT to my telescope collection which I'm initially shooting at reduced focal length of 1260mm. Initial image stacks on test subjects were fine but then I encountered an odd experience where certain subs would fail registration. No obvious reason why APP was doing this as immediately preceding or following subs with similar quality scores, star counts etc were passed. Visually the subs looked identical. Tried all the usual advice like increasing star count, selecting different camera and optics, increasing scale stop etc. None of it worked though with different settings sometimes different subs would fail. Eventually I managed to get it to register all subs by using Mosaic integration even though all subs were of the same target and overlapped except for dither differences. Whilst this worked it took a long time to complete registration. Clearly all subs are able to be registered, normalised and integrated so not sure why the normal method had this problem. Happened with beta29 and beta34.
Hi Callum @scott44,
Thank you very much for posting your issue. It sounds like a weird one indeed. Can you try the following for me and let me know if this solves the problem with simply analyzing and normally registering the frames:
in 3) analyse stars, can you enable the cosmic ray/noise reducer and set it to a value of 15 to 20? Then analyze the stars and try to register. Please take a note of the star count, and also check how the star map looks on your calibrated images. Are in fact the stars analyzed, or perhaps noise like hot pixels?
Mabula
@mabula-admin Hi Mabula - thanks for the response. I worked out what the cause was. The standard star count of 500 was the issue shooting at this longer focal length and this was exacerbated when I followed advice to increase the star count to improve registration. I reduced the star count to 40 and all the subs registered fine in normal mode. Sorry not used to shooting above 1000mm FL.
Hi Callum, @scott44
Thank you very much for your feedback. I think my solution will be more robust:
in 3) analyse stars, can you enable the cosmic ray/noise reducer and set it to a value of 15 to 20?
Then the star count can stay at 500 and you will be able to find more stars and thus get more precise registration/alignment of your images. Did you try the noise reducer in 3) ?
Mabula
@mabula-admin Hi Mabula - just tried it out by enabling the noise reducer with a value of 15 and that fixed it as well. I'll stick to your method. Many thanks.
Great Callum @scott44,
Please try now with APP 2.0.0-beta35 that I released today. It has a big improvement in star analysis that could solve the issue as well. So please try in beta35 without enabling the noise reducer and let me know if all is good now then as well 😉
Mabula
