64

[dvj]

Milky Way Mosaic updated to 64 segments. The work carries on.

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/137952

Another 60 segments are in the workshop to add to this.


Gigapan has modified their viewer a bit - and is a bit buggy. When going to full screen (modes on the right center), hit f11 for the "full screen".

Also note that snapshots can be toggled on or off.

Enjoy the ride!

jg

[gregbradley]

A truly remakarble image and a great project.

The stitching and processing is superb, its seamless.

Very inspirational.

Greg.

[multiweb]

Mammoth project. How did you handle the stitching of the panels and the distortion across such a large area? Did you use a wider field as a scaffold?

[atalas]

Wow! being able surfing around familiar and unfamiliar regions,zoom in,zoom out.... top stuff John.

[Octane]

Mind. Blown.

Looking forward to the colour. :P

H

[dvj]

Ahhh colour, yes. Any suggestions as to the approach on 140 segments are welcomed!




Thank you! I am anticipating the rest of the segments will be grand as they go further south.



Photomerge in CS4/5. With careful preparation of each segment - orientation, levels, & curves so that the blend is seamless. Combining and blending on 64 segments took over 2 hours of CS4 processing time before the result appeared. Even with a a very powerful PC and lots of scratch disk and memory a lot of 0's and 1's are chugging away. Then I made a few individual adjustments to correct some incorrect blending. It's far from perfect. There are still some issues in this image that will be corrected when the rest of the segments get added.



Thank you Greg! I have lots of time and unlimited access to the remote, so why not! ;-)

[naskies]

Very cool! Add in some colour, and I think you'll soon be giving Stéphane Guisard (http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0934a/) some serious competition ;)

[Peter Ward]

Wonderful stuff!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

(you are a bad influence...now I have to get myself an Epic Pro :) )

[dvj]

Hi Peter, I had one of the Epic Pros here on evaluation for a short time. Great little devices. Fabulous if you have a good sharp telephoto. Some of the best Gigapans are those that allow you to zoom in with little loss of detail.

[multiweb]

So you do all your star registration in PS with 4 corners stars one at a time? Sounds like hard yakka. :question:

[RobF]

#!@$ this is getting good. It almost makes me wanna cry. Reminiscent (sort of) of a widefield DSLR shot zoomed right out, but as you keep going right in and, every, single, star is beautifully resolved. I can see enough DSO fields to keep me busy for years in there :rolleyes: :)

[strongmanmike]

Yeh, this is pretty amazing John and way over my processing and data gathering, head :scared2: great stuff :thumbsup:

Mike

[dvj]

Hey, thank you Rob. I began again last night working on southern portions down around 16h, -50. Oh boy, there are many hours more work to do, now up to 105 segments. But for now I am glad you are all enjoying the zooms. It's really nice to present full res. BTW, Gigapan seems to go more than 100% zoom, so IMO the stars tend to get soft at full zoom. No sharpening done to this mosaic, but it could benefit from a slight touch.

jg

[dvj]

Hi Mike, It all started with one simple late morning shot into the pipe nebula area. It's addictive.

j

[jase]

Great to have a swim around the area John. Spent a good twenty+ minutes studying the scene the other night. Marvellous image. I wont give you stick about adding colour data. Some people just don't look good wearing a purple sweater, and this image is one such example. Keep it monochrome for the sake of fantastic contrast and dynamic range. It also makes for a great cosmic 'roadmap' with so many areas of interest. Will be sure to visit again as you continue to chart new territory.

[RickS]

Wow, that's amazing!

[dvj]

Hi Jase, Thank you for the comments. I'm a monochrome nut, so I do indeed appreciate it when someone else recognizes the beauty of contrast and tones.

jg

[White Rabbit]

Amazingly well done.
How long has the process taken?

Thanks
Sandy

[Ross G]

An amazing photo John.


Ross.

[dvj]

Thank you Sandy. 3, maybe 4 months into this. Weather, Moon get in the way. Captured 3 more segments this morning so it's coming together slowly.

[cosmophoton]

Outstanding work!