June 24 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta46 has been released !
Improved internal memory configuration (lower ! memory usage), fixed beta45 startup issue, fixed Set Save Directory & 2-panel mosaics.
May 27 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta45 has been released !
Fully Multi-Threaded LNC, many improvements for the registration engine, platform upgrade, and further tuning of internal memory consumption and memory release back to OS.
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 often image the same object simultaneously using both of my OTA's. Same location and time. Both are high end refractors with identical cameras, (2600mm pro) and filters (Antlia). One is 930mm Fl and the other is 560mm Fl.Â
I've been stacking them in APP for a few years now and am generally pleased with the results, especially with APP 2.0 beta44. I have heard some pushback online that two focal lenghts can cause softness and artifacts. Can anyone offer any tips, tricks or cheat sheet that might offset me wondering if that might be true?
Again, I am pretty happy with my current workflow and results, but I'm always looking to improve. I have noticed a lot of impovement over that last year with APP, so a big shout out and thanks to Mabula!
Thank you for any feedback,
Frank
Hi Frank @frank-coster,
Thank you very much for posting your question and your nice feedback, that is greatly appreciated.
I've been stacking them in APP for a few years now and am generally pleased with the results, especially with APP 2.0 beta44. I have heard some pushback online that two focal lenghts can cause softness and artifacts. Can anyone offer any tips, tricks or cheat sheet that might offset me wondering if that might be true?
Simply combining data from 2 focal lengths should not be a problem at all. Any softness or artifacts will be caused by data quality issues caused by either bad optics or problems in the optical path that create artifacts. If there are optical issues like that, if you use 1 telescope, the artifacts are consistent and are not too bothersome. But if you combine 2 telescopes with both artifacts and thus very likely different artifacts, the artifacts become more of a bother of course.
Softness might have to do with capture quality (sky conditions) and or sub optimal sampling maybe (pixel size versus resolution of the optics).
From you settings, the most obvious improvement will come from turning on dynamic distortion correction in 4) Register, that should ensure that the alignment of your stars between the focal lengths improves substantially I think, creating sharper results especially in the corners of your field of view.
I see that you are using drizzle, which is okay, but depending on the amount of data, I suggest you play with the drizzle droplet size. With less than 100 frames, maybe increase the droplet size a bit. With several 100s of images, you can even lower it to 0,5-0,6 to get a bit more sharpness.
So try first dynamic distortion correction, in my experience, this improves things a lot when combining data of different focal lengths most of the time.
Please let me know if this helps,
Mabula
Thank you Mabula for getting back to me. Like I said before I have been happy with my stacking results recently, and now I know my settings in A.P.P. are on the right track.
Today I re-stacked an HaLRGB galaxy project I did 2 months ago, 400+ subs with 5 different filters, and used the "Dynamic Distortion Correction" this time. I noticed a slight outward bulge in the new stack done today and very slightly larger stars when pixel peeping. Otherwise the masters looked good and I completed the full post processing with good results. The only reason I drizzle is because my SVX90T is a little undersampled. My SVX130T is not undersampled.
Thank you again Mabula
Frank
Okay great Frank 😉 thanks for the feedback, happy to hear all is okay.
Optical distortion can have different forms, so the correction can make the data look different like you see, that outward bulge means that the optics distort in the opposite direction. You can read about these here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_(optics) I have also written about this in the upcoming manual.
Mabula
