Work In Progress

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Hi all,
I have a plan to produce a reasonably detailed all sky image (well, all sky that I can get from my location). I have collected a few panels for the mosaic so far and I will hopefully finish this section of the Milky Way soon. I couldn't resist throwing what I have got so far into my panorama software and out spat this 1.2 Gig image.
A few quick adjustments and massive size reduction later, I give you my work in progress. There are some obvious colour issues there which I will need to try and tune out of the final image but pretty happy with the detail level so far. I suspect I am going to need a bigger computer to finish this project though.



Higher quality jpeg can be viewed here http://greg-gibbs.deviantart.com/art...ress-331147273

Canon 5DMkII
Canon Nifty Fifty @ F/4
ISO 800
4 minute exposures
NEQ6 Pro Goto Mount unguided
Stitched in PTGui Pro
Adjustments and resizing in PS CS3

Any comments or critique greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Greg

[RickS (Rick)]

Looks great, Greg. Should be a cracker when finished!

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

looks great Greg, I feel for your computer!!
how many stitched pictures is this made up from?

best of luck with the rest of the mosaic

Cheers

Rusty

[ourkind (Carlos)]

WOW Greg! It already looks stunning!

You might need some similar software to seti@home so willing participants can help you process your images

Make sure you have UPS and file backups while processing!

Looking forward to more glimpses and the final version!!!

[iceman (Mike)]

Beautiful work Greg, that's going to be a cracker when it's finished.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Looks pretty cool. How do you view the high res?

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Looks very grand, I like these ragged edged mozaics actually, kind of looks like the results from a NASA probe or satellite

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Looks very grand, I like these ragged edged mozaics actually, kind of looks like the results from a NASA probe or satellite

Mike

I agree; I really like that look.

An interesting project to undertake, no doubt it will have its share of hassles but right now it is looking nice and will look great once done.

[Larryp (Laurie)]

That's going to be superb!

[AstroJason (Jason)]

Wow that is great! Can't wait to see the finished product

[gregbradley]

A great project Greg and a fantastic start.

The most obvious thing about it to me is the blue bias. I think Canon cameras in nightscapes often seem to have a blue bias. The Nikon seems to have a slight green or yellow bias. So both need to be controlled with colour.

If this is RAW my suggestion is to play with white balance temps to get the right one. It seems too cool and a higher temp white balance may do the trick.

I wonder if an 18% grey card 4 minute exposure might make a great custom white balance for the camera. I should try that for myself.

4 minutes at ISO800 sounds smart for maximum dynamic range and minimum noise.

I've seen some 5D shots of the Milky Way that get this fantastic fine white star backgrounds. It would make a good processing goal to try to achieve that.

Did you use F4 for chromatic aberration in the lens reasons? 50mm lenses are usually pretty good and the cheapest in the range. I got a Nikon 50mm F1.8g lens recently thats a real cracker and it was only $209 on Ebay. I haven't used it for astro yet but I did use an older Nikon 50mm F1.8 AFD and it was superb wide open. I had a Canon 50mm F1.8 and it seemed the same as the Nikon AFD but not as good as the Nikon 50mm F1.8g.

Greg.

[atalas]

Great project!very nice.

[Poita (Peter)]

What spec is the computer you are processing that on?

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Looks great, Greg. Should be a cracker when finished!

Thank you very much Rick

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

looks great Greg, I feel for your computer!!
how many stitched pictures is this made up from?

best of luck with the rest of the mosaic

Cheers

Rusty

Thank you very much Rusty Just 12 or 13 from memory in that so far.

Originally Posted by ourkind

WOW Greg! It already looks stunning!

You might need some similar software to seti@home so willing participants can help you process your images

Make sure you have UPS and file backups while processing!

Looking forward to more glimpses and the final version!!!

I SO need to look into that. Haha Thanks very much Carlos

Originally Posted by iceman

Beautiful work Greg, that's going to be a cracker when it's finished.

Thank you very much Mike

Originally Posted by multiweb

Looks pretty cool. How do you view the high res?

Thank you very much Marc This is as big as I am offering at the moment. I promise to upload the full res version somewhere once I am finished

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Looks very grand, I like these ragged edged mozaics actually, kind of looks like the results from a NASA probe or satellite

Mike

Thank you very much Mike

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

I agree; I really like that look.

An interesting project to undertake, no doubt it will have its share of hassles but right now it is looking nice and will look great once done.

Thank you very much Paul Glad you like it so far.

Originally Posted by Larryp

That's going to be superb!

Thanks Laurie

Originally Posted by AstroJason

Wow that is great! Can't wait to see the finished product

Thanks Jason

Originally Posted by gregbradley

A great project Greg and a fantastic start.

The most obvious thing about it to me is the blue bias. I think Canon cameras in nightscapes often seem to have a blue bias. The Nikon seems to have a slight green or yellow bias. So both need to be controlled with colour.

If this is RAW my suggestion is to play with white balance temps to get the right one. It seems too cool and a higher temp white balance may do the trick.

I wonder if an 18% grey card 4 minute exposure might make a great custom white balance for the camera. I should try that for myself.

4 minutes at ISO800 sounds smart for maximum dynamic range and minimum noise.

I've seen some 5D shots of the Milky Way that get this fantastic fine white star backgrounds. It would make a good processing goal to try to achieve that.

Did you use F4 for chromatic aberration in the lens reasons? 50mm lenses are usually pretty good and the cheapest in the range. I got a Nikon 50mm F1.8g lens recently thats a real cracker and it was only $209 on Ebay. I haven't used it for astro yet but I did use an older Nikon 50mm F1.8 AFD and it was superb wide open. I had a Canon 50mm F1.8 and it seemed the same as the Nikon AFD but not as good as the Nikon 50mm F1.8g.

Greg.

Thank you so very much for that awesome feedback and suggestions Greg. I really appreciate it. Yes F/4 was used to mitigate CA. The nifty fifty is pretty poor at the edges wide open at F/1.8 but stop it down to F/4 or F/5.6 and it is very sharp.

Originally Posted by atalas

Great project!very nice.

Thank you very much Louie

Originally Posted by Poita

What spec is the computer you are processing that on?

Just a home PC Peter I'm not even sure what it has in it these days. Been upgraded a few times, but noticeably struggling with this whooper.