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.
[Solved] Star Color Calibration with Narrowband Data
I use narrowband filters, including L-Extreme, for much of m y data. Is there a preferred way to calibrate star colors, or does it even make sense to try?
Wayne
This topic was modified 5 years ago 2 times by Mabula-Admin
Star Color Calibration only really makes sense on broadband RGB data. It can never be performed on narrowband data because Black Body physics needs information of the whole RGB spectrum or at least a large part of that.
The star intensities on those narrowband wavelenghts can deviate big time from the broadband RGB spectrum of the star, because it probably has emission or absorption lines superimposed on the RGB spectrum especially on those narrowband wavelenghts...
So if you want correct star colors you always need to add RGB data. If you only work with narrowband, the star colors will never be properly calibrated.
Sure, simply use the RGB Combine Tool to combine Narrowband with BroadBand.
I will soon make a video Tutorial about how you can get RGB stars and Narrowband Nebula like this (this is RGB + SHO data) without even removing stars are using starmasks in the RGB and SHO data:
You can of course reduce/remove the narrowband stars if you want first in the narrowband data before combining with RGB.
A tutorial would be much appreciated! I am also struggling to understand how to replace narrowband stars with RGB stars.
APP has grown so much since I started using it in 2019. Many thanks for all of the speed and functionality improvements in 1.083.3! I especially like the improvements in the star reduction module. That is the one other are where a tutorial would be helpful - for star reduction on only the larger stars.
Sure, simply use the RGB Combine Tool to combine Narrowband with BroadBand.
I will soon make a video Tutorial about how you can get RGB stars and Narrowband Nebula like this (this is RGB + SHO data) without even removing stars are using starmasks in the RGB and SHO data:
You can of course reduce/remove the narrowband stars if you want first in the narrowband data before combining with RGB.
That would be a great Tutorial! Looking forward to it!
I will soon make a video Tutorial about how you can get RGB stars and Narrowband Nebula like this (this is RGB + SHO data) without even removing stars are using starmasks in the RGB and SHO data:
9 months have passed and no sign of tutorial yet...
Can we hope to have this tutorial as Christmas gift? 🤣
documentation and video tutorials will get the attention after the 2.0.0 stable release which has all the priority now.
A workflow for RGB + Narrowband with good RGB stars is not that difficult with APP these days, let me give you a short but good method:
1) Make a RGB composite
2) Star color calibrate that composite
3) make the SHO (or HOO etc) narrowband composite
4) Tune the NarrowBand (NB) composite completely as you would like have it in the final RGB-NB result using the RGB Combine Tool & Selective Color Tool
5) Load both RGB (Star color calibrated) and NB composite into the RGB Combine Tool
6) Keep multipliers fixed for the RGB channels, for instance at default 1.0x
7) Tune the multipliers for the NB composite while keeping them the same, for instance all at 2.0x
There will be a multiplier where the stars still look like star color calibrated stars and where the narrowband signal starts to show nicely !
A next step for improvement would be to perform star removal or star reduction in the SHO composite, making it easier for the RGB stars to show 🙂
But by this time, I've been imaging for 2 years apart just "stars" (Uv Ir cut filter) for 30-45 minutes, then separate them with Starnet or StarX, create a star-mask, work on it separately, post process and put stars back onto final nebula or galaxy...
documentation and video tutorials will get the attention after the 2.0.0 stable release which has all the priority now.
A workflow for RGB + Narrowband with good RGB stars is not that difficult with APP these days, let me give you a short but good method:
1) Make a RGB composite
2) Star color calibrate that composite
3) make the SHO (or HOO etc) narrowband composite
4) Tune the NarrowBand (NB) composite completely as you would like have it in the final RGB-NB result using the RGB Combine Tool & Selective Color Tool
5) Load both RGB (Star color calibrated) and NB composite into the RGB Combine Tool
6) Keep multipliers fixed for the RGB channels, for instance at default 1.0x
7) Tune the multipliers for the NB composite while keeping them the same, for instance all at 2.0x
There will be a multiplier where the stars still look like star color calibrated stars and where the narrowband signal starts to show nicely !
A next step for improvement would be to perform star removal or star reduction in the SHO composite, making it easier for the RGB stars to show 🙂
Mabula
Thank you so much Mubula for that step by step explanation!
Ive been using a mono camera (294mm) and have had no luck adding RGB stars to my SHO or HOO composites until I found this thread. I’m very excited to finally have this solution just in time the arrival of my new 90mm triplet next week!
The attached image was taken with my little 60mm doublet last week.
Mark
This post was modified 3 years ago 5 times by Mark Abbott
@markabbott that is a very nice star color calibration you have made. Would you like to state which filters you used, and how long and how many exposures?
I used Astronomik Deep Sky RBG filters for the stars (45 X 60" for each filter) and combined it with Ha (36 X 300") and Oiii (36 X 300"). The narrowband filters are Astronomik 6nm Ha and 6nm Oiii.
Total integration was a little over 8 hours. The Astronomik Deep Sky RGB filters are reasonably priced at $280 for a 1.25" set.
This post was modified 3 years ago 2 times by Mark Abbott
Ive been using a mono camera (294mm) and have had no luck adding RGB stars to my SHO or HOO composites until I found this thread. I’m very excited to finally have this solution just in time the arrival of my new 90mm triplet next week!
The attached image was taken with my little 60mm doublet last week.
