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,Â
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APP is a great tool with specific strengths like creating a mosaic (LNC, MBB!!) AND applying lightpollution subtraction at once. The shortcomings are there and on a long to do list, worth waiting for, I believe. Meanwhile I tried to work around having to buy a new PC with more RAM, which APP needs for a lot of tasks, or just waiting:
I did some mosaics in mono using the Sony IMX455 (24x36 mm) mit 61 megapixel, which is quite demanding on anything.
I had the idea of doing a mosaic with HaLRGB mono of one of my favourite regions, Antares&co, ending up with 24 panels 2 hours exposure each, about 1000 exposures total. The result will be a more the 1000 megapixel picture and you can imagine what all the trouble can be processing it.Â
So, App did the HaLRGB combination of each panel and then I could create a mosaic with the 24 stacks of each panel, which was downscaled due to memory demands to 0.68, so a bit less than 50% resolution, still ok. But then I could not load it into the LP tool etc. Bummer. For meanwhile I have been having a real treat using it.
By trying a lot I finally decided to stack a mosaic of each mono filter registered all togther, resulting in 5 seperate >1 giagpixel mono mosaic, which took like 26 hours. Full resulotion and even LP worked!
The combination of course needs to be done with another software, still, but so far happy that I still have time to think about a new PC in this hard times of supplies.
example
 the raw stack of full resolution h-alpha before LP processing
temporary result ready for further processing (pixinsight).Â
APP's LP tool has a tendency to produce "black holes", so putting boxes there helps ...
stefan
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Very nice result and great you did find a solution for such huge mosaics. The new sensors definitely cause issues on systems as the resolution and memory consumed is so big. With improvements to APP we always try to make it more efficient and since these sensors are being used more often, they will get our focus as well.
So here is a crop from a150 megapixel downsclaed version, first result in HaLRGB, 48 hours and 24 panels. Even pixinsight crashes often so I reduced it to 150 mpx for processing. Further processing and versions of course pending but finally something to show
Will be great to see it and APP growing!
Stefan
