Recommendations for mosaic software

[Merlin66]

I'm looking for recommendations for Windows based software which can produce acceptable stitched mosaics of lunar and solar (Ha) images.
Any experienced users????

[rustigsmed]

hi ken,

you may have 'windows live photo gallery' already on your computer?

it has a stitch function that is easy to use and effective. it can use and save in tiff format. worth a try if you have it, I found it pretty good - although haven't done solar stitching. could be worth a try if you have some files ready for stitching and it is already on your computer.

cheers

[britgc]

Microsoft ICE is also worth a look.

Never used it specifically for lunar or solar images myself, but others do and there are a few tutorials available online with a quick search.

[sil]

ICE has worked great for me with lunar. Free an absurdly simple to use. I used to use Hugin which can be hard to beat if you put in the effort to tweak. I've used it to create panoramas people insisted were impossible to do but i worked out a method.

[Merlin66]

Thanks guys.
Based on feedback and reviewing the mosaics on this and other forums, the general consensus seems to be to use Photoshop or MS ICE.

[sil]

PS is useless. ICE is surprisingly idiotproof but still not perfect. Hugin is great for control freaks and Autopano is great for both (controling idiots?). Hugin can be used to create aligned images if you want to blend them elsewhere in case you're interested in seperating the tasks. I've been using ICE a lot recently on mars & pluto mosaics from nasa's data sets because its damn good and so quick and simple to use.

[Merlin66]

Sil,
Contrary to your opinion, the guys on the Solar Chat forum feel that PS is capable of handling multi image solar mosaics and present very high quality results almost daily.
http://solarchat.natca.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17716
I do agree with you (as I don't use PS) that MS ICE does a good job.

[Paul Haese]

PS CS6 works really well for solar and lunar mosaics. And; you have seen my images. I have heard though that MS ICE works well too.

[alocky]

Some examples of photoshop's complete uselessness. ;)
transit of venus:
http://www.astrobin.com/12660/
lunar mosaic:
http://www.astrobin.com/28098/
and a whole pile of full disk solar mosaics. All done with PS CS6
http://www.astrobin.com/214721/
http://www.astrobin.com/183605/
http://www.astrobin.com/89864/
http://www.astrobin.com/59986/
http://www.astrobin.com/26338/
there's more, but I'm sure you get the point.
cheers,
Andrew.

[sil]

yes of course there are always exceptions and differences of opinion. if Ken wants to use PS that up to him to decide its usefulness, but coming from decades of photography I find PS too limiting for astrophotography. Hugin is by far the best stitching software I've ever used but it can take a bit of work. Depending on what you want to do there are better more technically accurate tools than PS, either way YOU still have to work at it, they don't read you mind and take a jumble of data to produce an image putting Hubble to shame. ICE just gives fantastic results so much faster, just because its microsoft doesn't make it bad in any way and there is no reason windows people shouldn't use it, even if you want to treat it as a preview to make sure your mosaic fits before dedicating the time/effort aligning in another program.
Being partially disabled now I have had to adjust how I capture for the gear I have and can use and try to get the best I can out of what I have. I do use PS when its the right tool for the task (like the transit of venus) its just not a panorama/mosaic specialist tool though. Ken is smart, he'll find what he needs. I still like a table top jigsaw of 6x4 prints to build up an image :)