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 guys,
I have a 600D modified and have both RGB and Ha data taken from different filters. Can APP stack them if I add the Ha data and select them as Ha?
Sorry if its bit of a nooby question. Only getting into adding narrowband to RGB.
Regards,
Najeeb
No problem, you can ask whatever question you'd like. 🙂
You can stack them indeed, but APP isn't able to fully go through the entire process because you want to combine 3-channel with 1-channel data. This will be possible in a future version.
For now, you can either load in the RGB data (the subs) add calibration data and then in tab 2, all the way down, there is an option called "split channels". First calibrate and then save the calibrated frames with split channels switched on. That will produce calibrated, R, G and B data. For the Ha-data you need the "Extract-Ha" algorithm in tab 0, if you select that and then load the Ha data, you'll have that immediately. I'd save that with calibration as well in tab 2 (switch off split channels). Then you can load this data in again as lights and assign them to R, G, B and Ha (APP does this automatically). No need for calibration data now anymore, so you can continue to integration. In the end you'll have integrated R, G, B and Ha data which you can combine in the RGBCombine tool.
@vincent-mod hey vincent, I have a question about this.
I’m also combining hydrogen-alpha (from a dual-band filter) with RGB (from an IR cut filter)…all from my OSC camera.
I was planning on integrating the “RGB/IR cut” subs normally, and the dual-band filter subs using “extract hydrogen alpha”. I’d then separate out the RGB channels from the integrated IR cut/color image, and use RGB Combine to create an HaRGB image (assigning Ha as the extracted hydrogen-alpha data from the dual-band filter.)
Will this basically produce the same result as the method you mentioned above?
I just want to make sure that I’m doing this the best way that I can.
Thanks!
Jeff
Basically yes, in the method I describe you're first getting all mono data and then you load all those in again and let APP go through the registration and integration like normal.
@vincent-mod hi Vincent, I have been doing RGB stacking from my OSC with APP for some time, but also now wanting to start combining with data from an L-Extreme filter (from my OSC), same as @jeffreyhorne above.
I read numerous threads and thought that you could do this WITHOUT having to separate the RGB channels via "split channels", i.e. by just combining 2 sets of data (RGB and H-a) using RGBCombine.
Am I misunderstanding something (highly likely I know...)? many thanks.
You can yes, but they do need to have the same bit-depth and dimension/registration, so for that part you do need to register/normalize them against each other.
