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.
Hi, I'm new to this so bear with me 😀
I have been playing around with APP now on large sets, made in a single run of an object. However, I would like to play around with a panorama. Made the beginner mistake treating that as a mosaic, got cured.
I now have done a test run with 150 lights per ‘set’. I positioned my Sony a7iii camera pointing up, and then did 4 sets from south east to north east. Using just a Sony a7III, Sigma 20mm f1.4. So all lights are same optics. And per set there is overlap.
Lights set 1 (Tilted south east): 150 lights 5”, ISO 1250
Lights set 2 (Tilted straight up north): 150 lights 5”, ISO 1250
Lights set 3: (Tilted north east, medium hight): 150 lights 5”, ISO 1250
Lights set 4: (Tilted north east, low): 150 lights 5”, ISO 1250
In order to make this panorama, I’ve loaded all frames at once with the bias, blacks etc. But I’m wondering if that’s the smart thing to do, it takes ages 😉
So what would be a good workflow for this?; ie; first go through all stages PER set, save that as set 1, 2, 3 4 and then create a set 5 with 5 fits and then integrate those and play around with LNC / MBB?
Any tips / workflow suggestions are welcome, as well maybe that settings per stage to use at first. Thank you for your time and patience with a newbie.
I have done this approach; stack all sets seperatly and save as fits. Then reload fits again, and start register as mosaic etc. but i get this error:
Encountered error in module:
MultipleViewFullCameraCalibrationSimpleDistortionCorrectionNotSameCameraComplete
Error message:
org.ejml.data.SingularMatrixException: Solution contains uncountable numbers
Cause:
Solution contains uncountable numbers
org.ejml.simple.SimpleBase.invert(SimpleBase.java:409)
dv.b(Unknown Source)
dv.a(Unknown Source)
dv.doInBackground(Unknown Source)
read about simalar topics on the forums to see how this is done, mosaic or not, but i only get it right using 3 test frames per set at once...
I could use some help with the correct procedure. As mentioned, doing 3 frames of light per set works out fine. But i need 150 per set, so that I have 12.5 mins of data per set. Doing it at once isn't going to fly, not even on a core i9 and 2080TI. So I tried stack per set (all) and then merge those; that doesnt work either.
I was thinking; I could stack 10 lights of all 4 sets (40) per run, and then combine those 60 runs into one. But that might also take a lot of computing time. Is there any other smarter way? I've checked several posts in the forums on it, as well as the youtube video's but didn't find a good solution that a) doesn't take a week or 3 of computing time or b) involves a lot of manual labor...
Thanks
here's what i want to get (raw edit, just an example). From left to right we have 4 sets of shots. I've done this with 3 lights per set. But would love to see what 150 per set would do (about 600 lights).
Hi Henk-Jan @hangerman
Please accept my apologies for not replying to your post. I hope I can fix this now.
What you are trying to do is definitely possible, but you need a different workflow for this go fast and robustly and make it a success.
The workflow needed is described here : https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/mosaic-tutorial-milky-way-to-rho-ophiuchi-by-mabula/
The most important thing here is that you do not try to mosaic this with all individual light frames. You need to make mosaic panels first from the sets of 150 frames that you have. So that would give you 4 integrations/stacks. These should be done with LNC 1st degree and MBB 5-10% to get best results and least stacking artefacts at the borders. And normal registration should be applied, do not set it to mosaic registration when you make the individual panels.
Then those 4 stacks can be loaded as lights and registered as a mosaic. Since you cover a huge field of view (more than 120 degrees) You need to use the calibrated projective model in combination with mosaic mode.
To be able to project this in 1 image, the regular rectilinear projections is not an option, it can not render this. You need to use mercator or equirectangular projection to get a good looking result 😉
Please let me know if this helps and if you need any assistance, and again, please accept my apologies for not helping you sooner.
Mabula
