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 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.
