And the monster grows! SMC mosaic.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,
Finally some clear weather to add some more panels to this monster image of the SMC.
It's ceratinly turning out to be a challenge, getting overlaps on the image has not been an easy task. I have my pointing accuracy reasonable but it still takes up to 30 minutes to get each panel overlapping.
There's no easy way to do it, there's nothing bright enough in the canon 1100D live view to do quck centering. So each time I take a 30 sec exposure, check it and move the scope.
As you can see I stuffed up with an overlap trying to cut it too fine. I'll need to do another hours worth to make up for this strip.
At this stage it looks like I should do it with 20 panels.
Each panel being composed of 5 minute ISO 1600 subs, one hour total.
Cheers,
Justin.

[Manav]

Wow! Looks epic even at this stage

[multiweb]

That looks great Justin. There seems to be some interesting Ha regions coming up on the bottom right too. I know how you feel about the small missing bit in between two panels. Had that happen myself. Just stick a boxed title over it, beats reshooting a whole panel for a couple of stars. :thumbsup:

[Larryp]

Looks excellent, Justin

[RickS]

Nice work, Justin! Have you considered plate solving to help with positioning the panels?

[LewisM]

Now that's something special Justin!

Again proves that a DSLR in the right hands is a more than capable astroimaging tool.

[rustigsmed]

Awesome work Justin :thumbsup:

Looking forward to seeing more panels!

Cheers,

Rusty

ps - i know exactly what you mean with finding reference points with the DSLR, i had similar issues when i was trialling a mosaic in carina http://www.flickr.com/photos/80336656@N07/8854495488/in/photostream/

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Yugant!



Thanks Marc!

Hmmm, tempting on the box title.



Thanks Laurie!



Thanks Rick!

Don't know anything about plate solving, I'll have to investigate.
Thanks for the tip.



Thanks Lewis!

Yep, still enjoying the DSLR.
They certainly can produce some good images.



Thanks Rusty!

Nice to know I'm not the only one who's had problems with mosaics.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Astroman]

EQMOSAIC would help you here Justin... Great work though, wish I had your skies to do stuff like this...

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Andrew!

Another option to check out, thanks :thumbsup:

Cheers,

Justin.

[Camknox]

What an awesome composite! What equipment are you imaging with/at?

[Lee]

Looks great....
Take a look at Sequence Generator Pro - they use plate solving for target acquisition, and have a mosaic wizard for doing the sort of thing you are doing.... might make things too easy even??
Basically drag a box around what you want, set the angle, set the overlap amount and it does all the work....

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Cameron!

I'm using an unmodded canon 1100D, 8" Newt astrograph, HEQpro5 mount, Orion mini guider and type3 Badder coma corrector.



Thanks Lee!

Thanks for the tip, another option to check out.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Ross G]

Amazing work Justin.

Keep it coming!


Ross.

[David Fitz-Henr]

That's looking really good Justin; you really feel that you are looking out into the depths of space.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Ross!

I'm really starting enjoy the process now.
It was a little frustrating first off.



Thanks David!

It's better in high res, hopefully have the final posted on a site to do it justice.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Shiraz]

that's looking very impressive Justin - final image should be exceptional.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Ray!

I hope I can balance the final image, the larger it gets the more difficult it's becoming to process and get the balance right across the field.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Leonardo70]

Very Nice

All the best,
Leo

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Leo!

Cheers,

Justin.

[naskies]

Whoa, it grows!! Looking great so far, Justin.

[Stevec35]

Looking good Justin!

Cheers

Steve