Thanks Marc, it has been some of your previous FSQ mosaics that gave me a bit of inspiration
Mate, the FSQ is easy. It's flat and easy to stitch with very minimal overlap. What you did with the amount of panels and the surface covered is nothing short of outstanding. I did a couple of very wide milkyway fields in the past and I can appreciate the distortion and work going into this as well as manipulating large files and having gradients to contend with.
Mate, the FSQ is easy. It's flat and easy to stitch with very minimal overlap. What you did with the amount of panels and the surface covered is nothing short of outstanding. I did a couple of very wide milkyway fields in the past and I can appreciate the distortion and work going into this as well as manipulating large files and having gradients to contend with.
Kudos to you.
I'm actually really happy with the correction of the Sky Rover, I put 10 frames into CCDInspector and came back with a result of 8.8% curvature with 0.1-0.2mm tilt (not noticeable in the corners) with a full frame DSLR. It is about the same level of correction I got with my previous Sky Rover + 0.8x Flattener with a KAF-8300 sensor.
Well done, mate. That's a huge undertaking and you've done well.
I'm yet to start building my observatory (hole for the pier has started to be dug out) and this is inspiring me to put my mint gear back into production.
Well done, mate. That's a huge undertaking and you've done well.
I'm yet to start building my observatory (hole for the pier has started to be dug out) and this is inspiring me to put my mint gear back into production.
H
I'd so love to have even a semi permanent setup Looking forward to seeing yours when it is complete.
To those with a colour calibrated monitor, do I need to run another pass of green removal? It's showing up better on my laptop than my phone which shows it as needing more green cast removal. Should probably invest in a spider and a non-laptop screen
Wow Col....the latest iteration is bloody great with excellent rich colour! Rather Cassewellesque even..
Only minor blemish is a faint green stripe across the centre and a cyan stripe bottom right corner....and maybe juuust a touch more magenta and blue might look good..?
Wow Col....the latest iteration is bloody great with excellent rich colour! Rather Cassewellesque even..
Only minor blemish is a faint green stripe across the centre and a cyan stripe bottom right corner....and maybe juuust a touch more magenta and blue might look good..?
Well done dude
Mike
I am a bit staggered by the difference that a different processing method does! I was quite happy with the first rendition until I started processing it this last time. As I was processing each frame, especially towards the top, I was like "So that's what it was SUPPOSED to look like!"
When I was going through them I didn't want to overdo the green cast too much so I dialed it back, looks like it was a bit too much. I personally struggle to see the green issue until it's gone and the change in contrast kicks in; I have green colour issues I'll go through every frame and do some more green removal
Did some quick playing with the magenta and blue, going to have to think about how to do that without effecting the overall colour balance. Quick play with the curves made M8 & M20 look better but ruined the overall balance.
Not sure why but it looks like Rows 3-7 (I dropped the bottom two) through Column 7-10 have a bit of a blue cast in the blacks, getting worse as it goes down (earlier shots). Will test some blue background reduction when I get around to it
Had an attempt at plate solving, has some issues. Due to all of the correction over the large mosaic, it really struggled and the accuracy wasn't the best. It was close but just not quite there all the way across the frame. No matter. The first shot shows that I REALLY shouldn't have annotated the Tycho catalog
The second shows what I had originally assumed to just being a distorted star near the edge of the frame or something.
Colin
That image reminds me of a comment my wife made, just this morning, when we discussing Life, the Universe and Everything. It went something like – “Are there really billions of stars in our galaxy?”
As a short-attention-span video astronomer, I salute you.
looks fantastic Col - i would be stoked with that!
only minor gripe is some banding across the middle (red on top then blue/green underneath) then some perhaps on the bottom section. only mentioning it because it looks possible to take care of it with some processing?
still amazing shot.
Russ
edit: sorry didn't see others mention the same banding
Colin
That image reminds me of a comment my wife made, just this morning, when we discussing Life, the Universe and Everything. It went something like – “Are there really billions of stars in our galaxy?”
As a short-attention-span video astronomer, I salute you.
Robert
Thanks Robert, it is when you look at the FULL res version that it becomes apparent just how many stars there are. The noise in the background of most of the frame isn't so much noise as it is poor SNR stars!
Quote:
Originally Posted by alan meehan
Well done Colin what a huge effort the finished version is just superb
AL
Thanks Alan, I may start working on addressing some of the issues next week. Need a bit of time away from it
Quote:
Originally Posted by rustigsmed
looks fantastic Col - i would be stoked with that!
only minor gripe is some banding across the middle (red on top then blue/green underneath) then some perhaps on the bottom section. only mentioning it because it looks possible to take care of it with some processing?
still amazing shot.
Russ
edit: sorry didn't see others mention the same banding
I have been thinking about how to remove that banding, I have made some attempts but haven't had much success. It is embedded into the background of every frame and theoretically should be almost identical in every frame so I should be able to subtract it out. That is the cause of the blue stripes (the red bits don't have that banding, or maybe the red is the banding... not sure), the green is me not doing a heavy enough green subtraction during the processing. That one is easy fixed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobF
Great work Colin! Had a lot of fun exploring the hi res
I'll look at putting up a HIGH res version. Gonna be big.
Looks great! The dust details have come through amazingly after the star reduction. There is some horizontal red and green across the frame.. is that just an artefact from the mosaicking?
Looks great! The dust details have come through amazingly after the star reduction. There is some horizontal red and green across the frame.. is that just an artefact from the mosaicking?
But yeh, stunning shot. Probably Malin worthy!
d
Thanks Dylan. The stars have an average FWHM of ~8" (~3 pixels) which is tiny when compared so the fact that even with a Nikon D810 (36mp sensor) will likely have FWHM closer to 35-40" with a 85mm lens. If I wanted to be REALLY adventurous I could actually do some deconvolution but I am probably too lazy to do that on every frame
The green is something that I attribute to using a OSC and not doing enough green reduction during processing (I was trying not to do too much). There is a red/blue banding in the image that is a consequence of exposure times being too short. It is in the background of nearly every frame and I haven't quite figured out how to remove it. It is readout noise generated by the camera as it is the same in every frame (2 blue bands and 3 red bands). In higher signal areas it isn't as visible as it is swamped by signal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiraz
Colin, that is a wonderful image - great to just cruise around in. Thanks for posting it.
You're welcome Ray, once I actually finish this I'll have to put up a 50% res or something for those dedicated pixel peepers
I've dropped the resolution by half but it doesn't really effect image quality at all.
This isn't the version I got printed, that one was processed again afterwards which made it pop more BUT really damaged the higher resolution views.
Looking forward to seeing yours when it is complete.
