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.
I've been using APP (2.0.0-beta13) happily for a v long time, but a v strange thing has happened today.
When I calibrate my lights, the image is blurry. Â I've done the registration. Â If I integrate the calibrated files in Pixinsight, the PI image is not blurry. Â When I look closer it looks like APP is registering on perhaps some hot pixels rather than the actual stars. Â So I thought perhaps a new Bad Pixel Map was needed.
I created that new BPM, and then did a test stack of 5 lights, and the image was sharp again w no blurs. Â But when I added the rest of the lights, the image comes out blurry again. Â So I tested it again by asking APP to integrate the original 5 lights again, and this time it came out blurry!
So the same 5 lights, when integrated on two occasions in APP came out with two different results - in one the registration worked on the stars and the final image was sharp. Â In the other I suspect the software registered on calibrating pixels (as those are sharp but the stars blurry in the integrated image).
Any idea what's going on and how to get the stacking to happen properly? Â (The weird thing is that integrating lights from two days ago on the same target with the same camera and the same filter was fine w APP, as was integrating a different target today with a different filter). Â I really don't want to have to go back to other tools b/c APP has been so fantastic to use.
Thank you!
Try turning up your stars to 2000 and maybe turning on cosmic ray/noise reducer on tab 3.
Thanks @imnewhere but sadly no joy with either of those. Â Tried both, and blurry each time. Â I see that someone reported a blurry integration result a few months back as well.
I think the problem is one of APP taking some background red and blue pixels (it's a narrow dualband filter on an OSC camera) as stars. Â When I ran it at 2000 stars it reported FWHM of 2.00-2.03 consistently which is way too tight and not in bearing to the actual stars (normal FWHM is around 2.5). Â So its taking those pinpoints, thinking they are stars and then registering around those.
@Mabula any ideas? Â Thanks.
So based on the hunch in the reply above, I actually reduced the number of stars to 100 - idea being to force APP to stick to things that more clearly the bigger stars. Â And the test stack of 5 lights then integrated fine without blurs. Â I have the full night's image stacking now (with registration restricted only to 100 stars) so let's see what happens!
Did you try "Cosmic Ray" enable with 10 to 25 in value, in star analysis ?
This option appears since beta 10 (I asked for it because I got issues with long focal telescope with FWHM typicaly around 4 pixels).
Since this option, it works fine.
So reducing the number of stars in tab 3 to 100 from 500 worked, and the all the lights were stacked and integrated without blurring. Â Quite interesting - first time this has happened. Â Will keep that in mind for future targets - I wonder what it was about the lights on this target on this night that made this happen (same target on different nights has not shown this).
