First Moon mosaic

[EricB]

Hi there!

I haven't posted for a while. This is the result of bad synchronisation between my availability at night and good skies. However, I have had a very good run in the last week and have managed to take good quality AVIs of the Moon.

I have had a DMK41 for about 6 months, and I love it for its resolution and for its field of view. However, I have been frustrated by 2 things:

1) No being able to use the DMK in conjunction with my x3 Bintel Barlow. No matter what I do, I can't get any focus. I haven't solved that one yet.

2) Not having a focal reducer, I have been unable to take picture of the whole Moon.

Well, a few days ago, I decided to try to put together a mosaic (something I had never attempted before). I took 13 AVIs if the Moon, covering the whole disc, with a lot of overlap.

I processed each AVI as I normally do using Registax. I made sure I kept the same settings each time I processed each AVI. I ended up with 13 JPEG pictures.

I downloaded Autostich (which is free), imported the pictures into it, pressed Start and within seconds, to my amazement, I had the whole Moon disc looking like it was a single shot!

I tweaked the levels a tiny bit in GIMP. The result is the rather pleasing picture attached.

Now I have to solve the Barlow problem...

Cheers,

Eric

PS there is a tiny bit of data missing on the edge of the disc on the top left.

[ourkind]

Nice one!

[Rigel003]

That's an awful lot of work but a first rate result. Congratulations. I'd just clone that tiny spot. No-one would notice. If you're using a newt the barlow setup may not have enough in-focus.

[EricB]

Thank you Carlos and Greame. I now intend to continue the mosaic experiment by going through the different phases of the Moon.

RE Barlow, i have tried to shorten the scope since it's a collapsible SW, to no avail. I was going to get myself a Powermate. Perhaps I should abstain. Pity, I would really like to be able to take close ups.

RE missing data, thanks Greame, I will just do that.

Cheers,

Eric

[skytry]

hi Eric,
along with the others, Carlos & Graeme,
Eric, top effort, you have just taught me another way to
Astrophotograph, nice, and edit,
hoping in the future I can do as well,

regards,
Peter.

[malclocke]

I'm glad I'm not the only person who does this, sometimes I feel like I must be crazy! It is a lot of work.

I have a pretty similar workflow, except with a GSO 10" dob and a modified logitech webcam, and using Hugin for the stitching.

I also don't bother with registax, I just extract all the frames from each video and pick the best ones by eye. I think your end result is better though. Here's my most recent effort http://www.flickr.com/photos/malclocke/8019126903/in/photostream/

Malc

[EricB]

Thanks Peter and Malc.

Peter. Beginner's luck really. As I said, I am surprised at the result. I actually ran Autostich several times to make sure it wasn't a fluke!

Malc. You pics are great. The 56% illuminated one is really clear and smooth. Well done!

Cheers,

Eric

[Gem]

Very good effort! I have never quite got the hang of registax - you have done well! :)

[EricB]

Thank you very much Grant!

Cheers,

Eric