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've just started using APP and was wondering what would be the workflow to stack frames (light, darks and flats) gathered in multiple night of the same object and same equipment but different gain values.
Previously I was using DeepSkyStacker which allowed me to make groups (per night sessions) and stack all together into a single TIF file.
Any thought would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
Jairo
Hi Jairo,
APP has the option to process data from multiple sessions. Have a look at the 1) LOAD tab. At the top you can select "Multi-Session processing". Then when you load the lights, APP will ask you for which session they are.
HTH, Wouter
Hello Jairo,
As Wouter says.
There is also another way. You can also calibrate each session separately and save the calibrated subs. Do that every time you have gathered exposure time for a subject (using the appropriate darks, flats and flatdarks and BPM). In due time you will have a collection of calibrated subs and when you want to integrate, you simply load all the calibrated subs as lights, tweak the integration parameters to your liking and off you go.
This is the way I do it, because there can a lot of time between sessions due to bad weather and calibrating per session, just after the time of capture, makes it easier for me to remember which flat belongs to what session as it is still fresh in my memory at that time. I also perfom an integration whenever I have added a new session, just to see if and how much it is going in the right direction and to evaluate if I am at the point of enough-is-enough.
In the end, I delete the original subs and keep the calibrated ones. If you then want to add exposure time much later, say next season, it is a simple matter of making calibrated subs of the new exposures and throw them with the calibrated subs you already had in APP to integrate.
Regards,
Anne
I agree with Anne - I used to wait to calibrate all my data when I had accumulated all the data I wanted to use in my integration, and it took a long time and was tedious finding all the proper flat frames to use for multiple sessions.
Now I calibrate the day after acquiring the data and save the calibrated frames. This greatly speeds up the integration process when the time comes!
Cheers,
Rowland
