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.
Does anyone have an opinion about where the vertical light bands on the left and right edges are coming from? This required so much cropping that I wasn't able to get it all and keep the large nebula intact. This image was the result of 310, 60 second subs using a RASA 8 at F/2, an Optolong L-extreme filter, and a ASI533 OSC camera, unity gain. Dithering at every 2nd frame, 10 pixels. Flats, dark flats, and darks duly acquired and applied. There was a meridian flip as well.
Happy for any criticism or suggestions which could enable me to get a better result next time. Artifacts like this have been occurring repeatedly, and I don't know what is causing this problem.
Hi Paul,
Those edges are caused by the fact that the subs do not exactly overlap because of dithering. You see the regions where there was less signal accumulated because less frames cover those areas. You can blend those edges better by enabling MBB in tab 6. The black edges will not disappear and the only way to get rid of them is to crop.
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Wouter
@wvreeven Thanks. But I DID enable MBB and I always do. This remains a serious problem. Â
I am between a rock and a hard place. If I don't dither heavily, I get pattern noise. Â
@pswilson1 What value did you set MBB to? The default 5%? If yes, try a higher value like 10 or even 15% and see if that helps.
Dithering really is useful, even if that means having to sacrifice some of the FOV. The California Nebula seems to be a pretty large object for your telescope and camera anyway and I understand that it is hard to crop that beautiful image!
Yes, default. Thank you, I will definitely try setting this MBB value higher as this problem has recurred several times.
Dear Paul @pswilson1,
I see that the difference in Field of View for your light frames changes a bit. Now in combination with the strong signal of the nebulosity I would suggest you to try:
5) Normalize, use advanced normalization
I think that should fix it 😉
If not entirely okay yet, enable LNC first degree with a couple of iterations. That should really fix it in combination with MBB 10% roughly.
Please let us know if this helps 😉
Mabula
 Wow! Those suggestions made a HUGE improvement. I am embarrassed to say that I didn't even realize that normalization could be bumped up to "advanced". Plus I did run the LNC 1st degree at 2 iterations. Thank you so much for these instructions. I have learned something.
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