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.
So this is Alintak in Orion's Belt. Quite pronounced colour halo's around the bigger stars. Any idea what is causing this? I did have a LP filter in the imaging train. Is there some integration setting in APP to eliminate this? Thanks for any help.
Alnitak is a very bright and slightly blueish star. It looks to me as if the blue subs (or the blue channel in case of an OSC) are overexposed. If you want a more detailed answer then we would need to know exactly what telescope, camera and filters you used and which exposure time.
Clear skies, Wouter
Thanks. Equipment used was H-A modified Nikon D5500. Scope AT65 edq. 300 second light subs. There was an IDAS-D1 LP filter on the D5500.
I personally don’t have any experience with your equipment but I am pretty sure that 300 sec is much too long for such a bright star. As far as I know it is not possible to correct for that while processing the images. Not with APP nor any other software. But perhaps someone else on this forum knows a way to do it.
Clear skies, Wouter
Wouter is correct, it's simply in the data as it's over-exposed. That data you can't really fix, maybe a little bit by playing around with gradients tools, but that still won't be as nice as trying to get the data itself better. An HDR tool would then be really useful, unfortunately that's not in APP yet, but it is on the to-do list.
