Extra wide 3 panel mosaic, Orion to Taurus.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,

I've had these three panels for over a month. Tried stitching them together in DSS, didn't work. Also tried Canon photo stitch, it worked but the background was unbalanced.
I ended up downloading ICE by microsoft, worked beautifully!

Thanks to Allan Gould for that recommendation.

I think the reason it was difficult to get right was orion was high in the sky, while taurus was dipping down to the northern horizon giving a fair gradient in the background.
Jupiter in shot, also created a problem being so bright. There was a lot of reflection in the lens, it's all balanced out quite well with some fiddling in PS.

HEQ Pro 5 mount.

Unmodded canon 1100D nifty fifty lens at f/4.5.

2 minute subs at iso 800, total 16 minutes for each panel, darks frames applied.
Median stack in DSS (http://www.astronomyforum.net/wiki/DSS), stitched in ICE processed in PS (http://www.astronomyforum.net/wiki/PS) 7.
Cropped image.

Cheers,

Justin.

[David Fitz-Henr]

I'm no expert on mosaics, but it looks quite well stitched to me! ... and you can make out the Pleiades and blue reflection neb, Horsehead, Flame and great Orion nebulae quite well - gives it all great context with the constellation of Orion easily recognizable at the right. The only other comment is there appears to be some green colour noise on the left which you could process out.

[RickS]

Nicely stitched together, Justin!

[Larryp]

Turned out well, Justin. Certainly covers a lot of sky!

[Ross G]

Hi Justin,

Looks great!

Ross.

[allan gould]

Nice one Justin, glad ICE worked for you.
Allan

[rustigsmed]

awesome work Justin!

nicely framed and stitched!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks David!

The green noise is a real pain to get rid of, any suggestions with this would be appreciated.



Thanks Rick!



Thanks Laurie!



Thanks Ross!



Thanks Allan!

ICE is certainly the best so far for mosaics. makes it so easy.



Thanks Russell!

Cheers,

Justin.

[David Fitz-Henr]

As it is a mosaic, I'm not sure whether the green noise is an actual gradient across the three frames or whether it is a colour cast in one or more of the frames. Either way, GradientXterminator may be able to fix this.
If you don't have this and it is a colour cast that you want to remove from the stitched image (instead of colour balancing the individual frame and restitching it), then you could possibly:
- duplicate the layer and colour balance for the left hand side (ie. remove the green cast). This will make the RHS too magenta.
- Click Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All
- Use a soft brush with a largish diameter to paint the image on the LHS (make sure that the mask has the focus though or you will be painting the image itself). The foreground colour should be white and set the opacity & flow at say 20% to allow gradual control. Each brush stroke will reveal more of the green-balanced image to replace the green cast image.
- The green cast seems consistent across the LHS until it quickly (but not abruptly) fades out so you need to manually feather your strokes here.

If it is a gradient then there is a way to use the gradient tool in PS to subtract an equal gradient, but I don't know the steps off-hand.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks David!

I'll give it a go.

Cheers,

Justin.

[astronobob]

Tripple thick, I Dig the Field and view also, Nice One Justin !

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Bob!

I want to redo this field with more data, and now that I have down loaded ICE to stitch the images should be able to make some good mosaics.

Cheers,

Justin.