What are you stacking with Marc? Sony's software will convert ARW to TIFF. Nebulosity will turn TIFF into FITS, and it might turn ARW into FITS.
AutoPano will stack JPEG, TIFF and some RAWs (not sure about ARW). It also handles the lens distortions. Not exactly cheap, except compared to anything from Adobe.
With the NEX-5 I get ARW SONY files out of the Cam that I usually load in lightroom to color balance then export to TIFF 16bits and do my stitching in Registar. Then I go in PS and cut off all the chonky stars in the corners of all the panels before blending everything in.
But I think I should try to stack and data reject at least a few of the panels before stitching them to reduce the noise. Will probably repro and try get a better SNR.
Great image Marc, sounds like you had a lot of fun at Coonabarabran
Looking forward to the ha image
Richard
Thanks Richard. Yes it was a lot of fun and we had 4 consecutive clear nights. One with great seeing, the others average but always pretty good transparency. Two nights got pretty cold though as it iced up. Must have been below zero.
The trip to go there wasn't much fun though as I left Friday morning at 8:00am. I couldn't go through Katoomba because of the freakin' snow and had to back track to Bells Line of Road backway to Lithgow to be stopped again by the coppers. At that stage I was ready to go home but decided to try once more and I followed Putty Road all the way via Singleton then back across to Coona. That was a bloody long day driving but Friday night was sparkling so all forgotten.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Fitz-Henr
Another great mosaic Marc - seamlessly stitched together! ... and with a 35mm DSLR this time - you are certainly getting a broad range of experience! Apart from some distortions at the extreme mid/upper left, the stars look quite good; considering the short fl / wide angle of these lenses it is an excellent job that you've done here. I'll be interested to see the plate solve if you can get it to work.
Thanks David. Some of the edges are still bad as I had no overlap to correct. I stepped the lens down but it seems not enough. I'll try to platesolve this week-end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Yeh, this looks pretty good Marc, shooting from Coona huh? very cool, better than Wallaroo even
Mike
Thanks Mike. Yeah I did the trip with Ross, Louie and Colin. We had a ball and clear skies. Wallaroo's probably a lot closer and more accessible though. Off the freeway so to speak.
This should plate solve? as now there are no distortions?
You can also use it as a template for any further images.
Hope this helps.
Bert
Thanks for the file Bert. I'll certainly use it as a scaffold. Looks like UNIMAP is actually registering now but it crashes shortly after. I think I'll cut the file in smaller panels and platesolve them separately, then use you big file to register them back.
This should plate solve? as now there are no distortions?
astrometry.net still can't solve it Bert.
UniMap did but I had to restrict it to the Tycho2 catalog and mag 8 otherwise it ran out of memory and crashed.
RA centre 18:12
Dec Centre -24:00
Field 45:00x22:30
Detected 49432 objects (after blocking out an area around the tree).
Matched 7810 stars
Catalog stars in the area 71673
Deep sky objects 169851
It doesn't want to save the annotated image.
Marc, you should get UniMap to work if you use those ra/dec/field values as hints.
UniMap did but I had to restrict it to the Tycho2 catalog and mag 8 otherwise it ran out of memory and crashed.
RA centre 18:12
Dec Centre -24:00
Field 45:00x22:30
Detected 49432 objects (after blocking out an area around the tree).
Matched 7810 stars
Catalog stars in the area 71673
Deep sky objects 169851
It doesn't want to save the annotated image.
Marc, you should get UniMap to work if you use those ra/dec/field values as hints.
This should plate solve? as now there are no distortions?
You can also use it as a template for any further images.
Hope this helps.
Bert
It is a nice image indeed, Marc! And a thanks for a very useful tip, Bert!
Bert, what projection did you use in Star Atlas Pro?
Bert, I have Registar but don't have Star Atlas and was wondering if you could upload just the star maps for the southern, central and northern parts of the Milky Way so I could try to "rectilinearise" my widefield images?
It is a nice image indeed, Marc! And a thanks for a very useful tip, Bert!
Bert, what projection did you use in Star Atlas Pro?
Bert, I have Registar but don't have Star Atlas and was wondering if you could upload just the star maps for the southern, central and northern parts of the Milky Way so I could try to "rectilinearise" my widefield images?
Thanks,
Alex
Alex Stellarium works just as well and it is free. So does Starry Night Pro.
Alex Stellarium works just as well and it is free. So does Starry Night Pro.
Bert
Thanks, Bert.
The sky projection is important and in order for the image to be rectilinear, I think the sky needs to be in gnomonic projection (called "Perspective" in Stellarium). However, such projection considerably deforms the aspect of the sky for large field angles, and the image centre needs to be carefully chosen in Stellarium.
What sky projection did you use for the Star Atlas Pro and Stellarium maps?
The sky projection is important and in order for the image to be rectilinear, I think the sky needs to be in gnomonic projection (called "Perspective" in Stellarium). However, such projection considerably deforms the aspect of the sky for large field angles, and the image centre needs to be carefully chosen in Stellarium.
What sky projection did you use for the Star Atlas Pro and Stellarium maps?
Alex
In Stellarium I used 'Stereographic Projection'. In Star Atlas Pro I was in Star Atlas mode. The clutter of labels can make SAP maps tricky to register.
In Stellarium I used 'Stereographic Projection'. In Star Atlas Pro I was in Star Atlas mode. The clutter of labels can make SAP maps tricky to register.
Bert
Correct me if I am wrong, but then the resulting images would not be rectilinear (at least for Steallrium) because the stereographic projection is much closer to the fish-eye than rectilinear.
