SMC Lum Framing Test

[Atmos]

What do you do when you head to a dark site, get clouded out and end up with 3.5 hours to image? Do a framing test! This is a 15 panel mosaic of the SMC, 25x30s L exposures per frame.

There are some issues with this, the most noticeable is the lack of flats. I did take flats but the sun had come up and my flats have some extreme gradients! Slept in and couldn't be bothered getting up before sunrise. So much warmer in my sleeping bag than the icy outdoors. Calibrated with just darks and no flats, much better :)

There is some pretty bad tilt in one corner which has caused significant curvature and therefore some registration issues but this was just a test and clouds make fixing things difficult :P

SMC High Res (http://www.astrobin.com/full/312970/0/)

I've since decided to expand this to an 18 panel as I am currently close to losing some of 47 Tuc and don't want to lose some of the bottom of the SMC either. This is also the first time I've used PixInsights MosaicMerge script, tried to do it with the 2x2 drizzled files but my poor poor laptop continually became riddled with Lack of Memory issues; 16GB of ram isn't enough to do a 1 gigapixel image.

[Ryderscope]

Fascinating Colin as I have just started to experiment with mosaics myself and have chosen the SMC as my practice target. Mainly because it is conveniently located at the moment to enable many hours of data capture.

I can see some of the issue you mention but from the framing test viewpoint I would say that this experiment is a success. A full frame mosaic with 18 panels with all filters would be quite ambitious for sure. I shall be watching developments with interest.

[multiweb]

Very cool Colin. Some serious resolution there. Should make a great field. :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Wicked!

A worthy quest, Sir Colin.

[atalas]

Awesome....It'll make for s great pic when you complete the project Colin :thumbsup:

[RickS]

You seem to like ambitious projects, Colin :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

I’ve largely used the Milky Way for my mosaic testing although I did do some testing on the LMC last year. Should have fixed the issue last night, fiddled with the focuser collimation inside. It was clear last night but twinkling at zenith!!



That’s the idea :) Kinda along the same lines of your Milky Way FSQ shots.



Thanks Sir Jones.



Thanks Louie, it’ll look different to what I get with my 85mm lens.



Mike and Steve like their small obscure objects. Mike & Trish like using their 20” of aperture and going deep. I like the idea of large high resolution images :)

[Slawomir]

Very impressive! Nice work Colin :thumbsup:

[billdan]

That's just incredible, so much detail, so much hard work

[el_draco]

Very nice indeed. The detail is inmpressive.

[gregbradley]

That's good work. Sometimes the issue with mosaics is the panels that are plain night sky with no features are hard to know where they fit. Like a jigsaw puzzle. I take it you did good labelling and made a plan.
SkyX mosaic feature would be handy. Just click on go to on the next panel and it should line it up in the camera ready to go. There goes a lot of the work in these. I have yet to use it though but it seems simple enough.

Greg.

[Atmos]

I prefer the higher resolution and mosaicing than using a reducer ;)



Thanks Bill. Only took 3.125 hours of sleeping to capture the data but it took four days to process it!



Thanks Rom.



I actually used TSX to create and position the mosaic and then copied the coordinates into SGP. Followed the A1, A2, A3, B1 naming method making it easy to know what goes where. It is really easy to use.
SGP also has its own quite simple mosaic wizard which I’ll be trialing soon for the 18 panel.

[gregbradley]

That's good to know. I should use that SkyX tool next time. It can be very time consuming trying to line up the next panel without that!

Greg.

[Atmos]

It really is quite easy :)

[rustigsmed]

ambitious plan but it will look fantastic!
are you going to also add Ha and O3?
All you need now is some clear nights!! :sadeyes:

[strongmanmike]

Even with its current warpy warts it looks good Colin :eyepop: look forward to the finished project.

Mike

[Atmos]

Planning on doing Ha and thinking about OIII. Haven’t quite decided if I want to aim for that stronger bi-colour (HOO) or more of a natural look.



Every time I set the scope up I end up with 3-4 hours of unexpected clouds so we’ll see if I ever get it finished :lol: