Hi all,
this was my first attempt at a mosaic from SPSP last month.
I arrived on the Thursday with only a quick test image with the Samyang 135mm f2 under my belt prior. I decided to try a two-panel mosaic incorporating the Running Chicken/Lambda Centauri nebula and Eta Carina. Unfortunately I only got through 12 x 90 sec subs on the left panel before the clouds rolled in so had to wait until the following evening to grab the other panel (in which I used the same number of subs in order to match).
As I've mentioned previously, focus at f2.8 is critical and I didn't quite have it nailed on the first night resulting in very slight red/magenta fringing around some of the stars. When I re-did the focus on the second night the star images weren't necessarily any smaller but they were certainly a lot cleaner. Lesson learned (and applied on the Rho mosaic posted previously)
Because of the slightly different focus and resulting colour balance (+ different sky conditions between the two nights) getting these two panels stitched nicely in photoshop was impossible so I ended up using MS ICE which did a much better job.
Anyway it's a nice field and the result is reasonable for only 18 mins of data per panel I suppose
.
Bigger version here:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/299475/0/?nc=user