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
i have started using APP and love it. My question is using data shot over several nights. I can not seem to understand how i can know which files are the master darks/bias/flats/lights.
Now i add all the lights/darks etc for each night in session 1, 2 ,3..
This takes up alot of processing time. Am i not able to take the master files from 1,2,3 and when i add 4 (lights, darks, etc) to it so the total amount of images are 3 (masters) and not 100plus.
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Any help would be great
So, darks don't have to be taken each night. You can just load them all together and create a master-dark and BPM. Bias, same thing, load those and create a master-bias.
Then I would clear the data and start loading in the sessions and the flats for those sessions. Load in the masters you created and you should be fine. It is also possible to do this all at once, but to keep it simple for now try the above.
ok, i think i got it, I still need to load all my light frames for each session. there is no master light.
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No, the "master light" would be the end-result, the integration. To get that, you first need to calibrate all those lights with the master calibration frames.
I have a followup question, I recently did a multi night session as well, and I have a rotator. Â I made a mistake and didn't load my previous night image into NINA for proper alignment and plate solve. Â The bottom of the image just seems a little bit off, I'm curious if this is just a staking artifact, or if not, is there a best practices to get them to align. Â I'm also planning on adding more HA Data, but I'll remember to load a previous image to get the right angle and plate solve solution.
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@thextra10th All the edges are a bit off. This is caused by dithering or by drift of the telescope during imaging. Both introduce slight offsets of the frames with respect to each other and the edges show where less data was added. Normally you crop the images just at or slightly inside those edges to get rid of them. This is completely normal and expected behavior.
@wvreeven ok, thank you  I new I could crop, and I do dither, but because I forgot to load a previous nights image into nina ( even though I saved the sequence with target position information) I though I messed up a little bit.  Thank you and have a great day
