First Mosaic - Lagoon & Triffid

[Jasp05 (Aaron)]

This is my first attempt at a mosaic.

I initially was shooting data on Lagoon and Triffid (around 5hrs worth) when I decided to get some other frames around the area also and try stitching them together.

So only 3 different panels at the moment. totaling around 7hrs data.


Comments and Criticism welcome.

[casstony]

Very nice pic Aaron

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Aaron, that's a good start in the method of creating a wide field with multiple longer focal length frames. It would be good to try it along the length of the Milky Way where there are many examples of bright nebulae to include. I like what you've done though, so keep them coming!

[Jasp05 (Aaron)]

Now that I've started this mosaic thing I think I will work my way down towards M16.

Although I must say, this "small" 3 panel mosaic definately takes some crunching power to process in Photoshop. not sure my pc will be able to handle a file including data all the way down to M16.

How do you guys go about processing mosaics? I stacked each set of panels individually and aligned rgb in DSS.

Then I go into photoshop and edited the levels on each panel to get as even a colour across each frame before using the auto photomerge feature in Photoshop.

Once the image is merged I flatten it and go about processing as usual.

Is that the right way I should be doing it? Any tips on how to keep the file size manageable? I think this one was in the vicinity of 2gb as I had to save a .PSB file cause it was so large.

[assbutt94]

Very nice mosaic! I'm tempted to try one myself and have been capturing data on NGC 6188 but haven't really thought about the editing process yet.
I'll be keen to see any progress you make with your image, I quite like what you have so far