This is my first, albeit brief process of my 10x10 panel mosaic. I loaded it into Photoshop (a program of which I have NO experience with) and since come to realise that I need to clean my computer out a bit. Apparently editing a 16.5gb file uses a lot of HD space that I don't currently have
So here is a screen shot of my 5 minute edit Processing wise, I need to figure out a way of getting it into Pix Insight Only problem is that most file formats don't allow 16gb files! Currently have it has a .psd and cannot save it (not enough HD space [36gb available]) so it is a work in progress.
It is a 47109x28477 pixel image at 2.6"/pixel with a OSC (Nikon D700).
You'll probably break a lot of software with a file like that, Colin
PS handles it fine, I just don't have any experience with it!
Managed to save a 311mp TIFF for PixInsight though and had some fun with that. Have done some serious down sampling though. Gone from 1.34 gigapixels to 20mp
I do still have plans of ATTEMPTING to export a full res file to PI (if possible) but not sure if it'll happen any time soon.
For anyone that wants a high res, go view. Having been down sampled SO MUCH, it really has lost its immersiveness :/
that is Fantastic Colin very deep image and love the colour in the second one I can see a couple satellites in it which adds to it showed my wife and she couldn't believe the was so much colour in the milky way thanks for sharing
cheers Pete
Thanks Rob. The FOV is similar to what you'd get with a 50mm lens as a rough comparison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spiezzy
that is Fantastic Colin very deep image and love the colour in the second one I can see a couple satellites in it which adds to it showed my wife and she couldn't believe the was so much colour in the milky way thanks for sharing
cheers Pete
Thanks Pete. I didn't really want the satellites Working with single 60s exposures there isn't any rejection that I can do. Down on the lower area there is some redder and bluer banding, this is a consequence of shorter exposures. My D700 does not like NOT being sky limited, only 3.9e- read noise but it is a very noisy read out.
Photoshop is not the best mosaic program. I can see where PS has blended in the panels rather poorly. It seems to blend panels in with a gradient tool or something and its a bit not so good. A dedicated program like PT Gui Pro or Microsoft ICE (free) will leave PS for dead.
Also make sure each panel is processed the same way especially curves and levels. I would do the bulk of the final processing after the stitch and not before.
Photoshop cc 2015.5 has an auto background fill in when the stitched image is not square. That may be fine for daytime shots but for astro its probably a no go.
Try a free trial of PT Gui Pro (its faster than other pgms as well). I would also make the files smaller to make it easier to process. A neatly stitched image is better than a large but not neatly stitched pano.
I'll have to give PTGUI a looksy, I think I may have an older version (6 years at least) laying around somewhere.
A part of the issue I'm having is that there is some nasty noise left over by the camera. At ISO1600 the camera has 3.9e- read noise which under dark skies at F/5 means I need 120s to get above the read noise.
When I FIRST started in AP with my 10" LX200 I was doing 6s exposures and for a long time I thought I was actually dealing with electrical interference either from the power lines out the front of the house or even the WiFi signal. A large sine wave passing through the image. This is still noticeable at 30s at F/5 but at 60s it is just a discoloured banding. At 120s it is swamped by sky glow so it isn't noticeable.
The attached picture is the lower left corner (my first frame for the night). Areas where there is a lot going on it isn't noticeable, darker areas however have this banding which at 60s is a good proportion of the frames. Most of the stitching is pretty good, there are a handful of BAD spots but the bigger problem seems to be the noise in the frames themselves :/ Have tried the BackgroundExtraction in PI and it helps on frames like the one below but will likely cause more issues on the higher signal areas.
Looking ace! Yes id be interested how processing such a large file after mosaicing would go, performance wise
What I've done above has largely been processed before mosaicing but I have just started toying with stitching and then processing. Doing it this way certainly seems to allow for a more intense process.
The problem that I am running into however is that creating such a large mosaic in PI is a struggle unless I downsize each image by 50% to begin with, as I have done in the attached image. What I have just noticed is that it is causing a lot of blue haloing around the blue stars in a couple of the star clusters. I know this isn't caused by the telescope as it isn't non downsized images. Certainly allows for a more dynamic stretch though.
Nice work collecting all that data Colin it is a most magnificent region for an ultra high definition mosaic. It seems like you have some banding issues to deal with. I have some banding in my images also but I have found turning the camera vertical or on the diagonal and reshooting over the same area tends to solve this as the different directions of banding cancels out the other banding.
It certainly is a challenge for your software and hardware I have had ICE deliver an error message saying I require 2TB of free space to save the image when all the source images are not even 0.5TB.
Nice work collecting all that data Colin it is a most magnificent region for an ultra high definition mosaic. It seems like you have some banding issues to deal with. I have some banding in my images also but I have found turning the camera vertical or on the diagonal and reshooting over the same area tends to solve this as the different directions of banding cancels out the other banding.
It certainly is a challenge for your software and hardware I have had ICE deliver an error message saying I require 2TB of free space to save the image when all the source images are not even 0.5TB.
I have found the banding issues are a consequence of exposures being too short as I haven't noticed them at 120s. No possibility to reshoot this year though I don't believe. Have you found them with longer exposures? I haven't done enough testing to be sure yet.
Your undertaking is a bit more ambitious than mine! I managed all of mine in just under 2 hours and the mount did all the tracking and pointing. Luckily what I have is not going to be as demanding as your size right now. Takes about 10 minutes or so for my laptop to output a full res 1.34gigapixel PSD file. All of mine files only take up a couple of GB.
I think I am about as finished as I am going to get for a while, been working on it every day for over a week and my eyes don't want to see it anymore
I have dropped the first two panels as I just couldn't get them to match, may have still been that fraction too early when I started or it may also just be that the subs aren't long enough that far from the bulge. So now it is a 10x8 panel mosaic. Or a nice and neat Gigapixel image.
"High Res" on Astrobin being about 14mp or a little more than what my D700 does with an approximate FOV of a 50mm lens.
After a break I'll probably go and remove the satellite trails in PS and then get this printed
Any suggestions for the mandatory reprocess in a few months time?
Colin that is a work of art, a thing of beauty, and a technical masterpiece.
The mosaic is seamless and beautiful.
It'll take ages to explore. We quickly found pipe, Lagoon/Bigfoot, Trifid, Lobster, Cat's Paw, three asteroids. Would you consider an annotated version as your retirement project?
The pipe nebula at that resolution is quite wonderful - too used to seeing it as a general blur.
Colin that is a work of art, a thing of beauty, and a technical masterpiece.
The mosaic is seamless and beautiful.
It'll take ages to explore. We quickly found pipe, Lagoon/Bigfoot, Trifid, Lobster, Cat's Paw, three asteroids. Would you consider an annotated version as your retirement project?
The pipe nebula at that resolution is quite wonderful - too used to seeing it as a general blur.
Not enough room on this line for all the symbols.
Thanks Mike and Trish, I am really happy with how far it has come. Taken near a dozen attempts to figure out a workable work flow.
I was actually hoping that Astrobin may be able to do its astrometric solve and annotate it for me I'll give it an attempt tonight in PixInsight. Actually not familiar with the Pipe Nebula, have to look that one up
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Originally Posted by multiweb
The finished product looks terrific Colin. Well done.
Thanks Marc, it has been some of your previous FSQ mosaics that gave me a bit of inspiration
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Originally Posted by rcheshire
That is superb Colin. What a spectacular view!
Thanks, it is a bit better than what I have been able to achieve with a 24mm lens!
Processing wise, I need to figure out a way of getting it into Pix Insight 
