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.
Hello Mabula,
when loading HII lights that were made with N.I.N.A, the automatic detection via the "apply filter header tag or assign RGB/MONO" field does not work.
With all others (OIII, SII, R, G, B, L), however, perfectly.
N.I.N.A. enters "HII" in the Fits header of the lights, but the APP probably expects "Hydrogen-alpha". If I change that manually in the header, it is assigned correctly.
It would be nice if that were corrected in one of the next versions of APP.
Thank you Sven Hallmann
I'll pass your request to Mabula, Thanks
Dear Sven @svenhallmann,
I think that there is a misconception here one way or the other.
First, regarding filters for Hydrogen, a HII filter simply does not exist to my knowledge because there is not such an emission line. For the hydrogen atom we have, for instance the Balmer emission lines that include H-alpha and H-beta:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balmer_series
But there is much more actually for hydrogen, the famous H-alpha line is actually not part of the first Hydrogen series wich is the Lyman series...:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_spectral_series
H-alpha is very famous because it is emitted a lot in the universe, but it is not famous for being the most simple hydrogen emission line I think. The specific H-alpha wavelength is directly related to the energy step where the electron surrounding the proton falls back from n=3 to n=2 with n=1 the lowest energy level of the electron and n=2 the second lowest energy level. So H-alpha emission does not occur due to a H-alpha atom being ionized and then becoming not-ionized. The electron is in an excited state (because the gas is hot) and releases energy by emitting a photon but it stays excited still...
Now we do have HII - Hydrogen II nebula, but this only means that these are nebula where Hydrogen is mostly ionized meaning most H-alpha atoms do not have an electron attached and thus most of those H atoms do not emit H-alpha nor H-beta. Only the non-ionized atoms in such a nebula will emit radiation like H-alpha or H-Beta:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_II_region
So HII assignment is not related directly to either the H-alpha or H-Beta emission lines thus filters that we use in astronomy. A HII nebula will probably emit on both H-alpha and H-Beta and other H lines. The orion nebula is a HII region which is very bright in H-alpha and also in H-beta I think.
A HI nebula would ne a nebula with mostly neutral hydrogen atoms.
So my guess here is that you need to tell Nina that you shot with a H-alpha or a H-Beta filter instead of a H-II filter becaus a HII filter does not exist... Or does nina let you select a HII filter when you are composing your imaging session?
Mabula
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Thank you for the detailed and interesting explanation!
In fact, there was a misunderstanding on my part. I previously thought HII and H-Alpha were the same thing, just the 656.28 nm line.
In Nina I specify the name for the filters myself, which are then written into the Fits header. I have now corrected that and the automatic assignment works perfectly.
