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.
Hi, I am in the process of combining data from multiple telescopes over multiple nights. These happen to be Seestar S50s, where the default integration time is 10 seconds. Therefore when combining multiple nights and telescopes, it is very easy to get into thousands of individual RAW files to integrate.
It would be simpler to individually integrate each scope/night into a FITS file, and then combine the several FITS files. I know APP can do this, but is there a functional difference between this and throwing all the thousands of RAW files into a big pile made of several sessions, and integrating them all? This I suppose would be the "standard" way.Â
Specifically, while they are from the same scope and hence have the same optical train and sensor (convenient), they are not all the same length. Some may have 1200 lights, while others only say 500. When stacking FITS files, does/can APP take this into account by weighting? Or will APP just evaluate their individual quality, and weight them like that? Â
Thanks,
- Rich Klein
I would definitely stack all the data from each telescope as master lights, then take those master lights and run those as a mosaic if there are big differences in FoV and overlap, otherwise as a normal integration with same camera and optics unchecked. On the normalization tab make sure you have it set to advanced, then on the integration tab uncheck MBB and set local normalization correction to 4th degree and 5 iterations at the least. That gives me good results when stacking multiple telescopes. It is also much faster because you aren't trying to register and normalize multiple FoVs against each other as individual raw files.
So the steps are:
Stack the lights from each telescope as master lights.
Put those master lights in as lights after you have all your data together (if combining OSC and NB data split the OSC into channels and then stack those as master lights)
On tab 3 set it to 2000 stars (trust me on this one)
On tab 4 uncheck same camera and optics, and if you are doing a mosaic set it to that with a 1-10, 5-15, or 1-15
On tab 5 set mode to advanced
On tab 6 uncheck MBB if you have it checked (I normally leave it checked and at either 10 or 15 percent), then set local normilization correction to 4th degree 5 iterations. I normally leave it at 2nd degree 3 iterations for most of my stuff.
Then hit integrate.
As a note if you have large variance between the pixel count of your cameras you may want to either decrease the size of some of the large pixel count ones or increase the size of the small pixel count ones. I learned that with combining data from an FLI PL16083 and QHY600M Pro.