Mosaic Madness - Eta Carina NB

[Andy01 (Andy)]

My first attempt at a two panel Mosaic with the SV70T.
I'd like to try and get this technique right as there a few objects bigger than my FOV which would be nice to attempt.

I chose Eta Carina as it's a nice big, bright target to attempt as a first test over two rare consecutive clear nights in Melbs.
2 hrs each of 15 min subs Ha O3 & S2 per panel, 3nm Astrodon filters, with RGB stars.

High res HERE

Yep, you'll notice among other things that there's is a register problem with the stars at 9 o'clock, not sure exactly what happened there yet!
I've done a basic DDP stretch on the stacks, and aligned them using MSICE, which I found to be better than photomerge in PS2017.
But obviously, there's still some issues to resolve.

Happy to take direction and input on this, but I don't use pixinsight, and prefer mac based solutions.
That being said, I used Bootcamp to generate the stitches in MSICE for this one.
Then the usual HST, Bob Franke colour palatte, Andyfied with NIK filters etc. I'm happy enough with the aesthetics at least

But - I'm not 100% happy with the framing on this yet, IMO it needs rotating about 30-45 degrees, so now I've seen how darn big the thing is, I'll likely redo it and try to get it framed nicely, so please be constructive with your comments folks!

Taken from the backyard in suburban Melbourne, Australia, no idea about the seeing as I have 4.5 million neighbours with an excessive light fetish!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Nice job Andy, looks pretty good I like the framing, Martin Pugh did a similar framing a couple'a years back, different...well done on the mozaic

Mike

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

That looks really impressive to me Andy. Has a "wow" factor to it.

Cheers

Steve

[Atmos (Colin)]

I agree with Steve and the factor!
I find Autopano from Kolor good for mosaicing but it may be more than you're wanting to spend on a product.

The registering issue looks radial and kinda like a tilt or spacing issue. As you are unlikely to have a random spacing issue pop up and tilt would be visible in the individual frames... I'd guess that it is MSICE creating an incorrect distortion map when aligning the frames.

[Chris.B (Christopher)]

Wow. Love it.
I can only dream of ending up with something this impressive.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Cheers Mike, Steve, Christopher & Colin for the good vibes

Colin, thanks for your thoughts - It's unlikely to be tilt as it's entirely screw threaded system with the correct spacer in place.

I'll take a look at AutoPano Gigawhatsit, maybe theres a trial version - I really dislike switching between OSX & Windows so I'm looking for an entirely mac solution as the priority - and I'm holding off on Pixinsight as I use PS everyday

Clear skies tonight so back to it then...

[Atmos (Colin)]

I didn't think it would be tilt (obvious) or spaced issues as they either don't crop up out of no where (spacing; unless you experienced a universe localised expansion take place).

From memory there are three different Autopano products starting from $99, I use it on my Mac and it works well. I found it worked better than PTGUI with starry fields.

[Paul Haese]

I like the colour scheme. It is almost the same as one I did on this object about 4 years ago. I think it lends itself quite well to that palette. There is a nice balance to all the bandwidth light presented.

With regard to the registration would your system have some flex related to rotation. That being would there be something causing rotation of the imaging train?

[RickS (Rick)]

Look forward to the redo, Andy. This one shows great promise

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Andy, we just love it.

Let's just talk abot the top half - Gabriela Mistral, Gem Cluster, and surrounding nebulosity - is beautiful and informative. Ms Mistral seems to be reclining in a lounge chair upholstered in a magnificent fabric, peacock blues at the bottom, and a pure orange-gold at the top, which in turn could be a bent and furry Wookie arm with precisely formed hairy thumb and fingers, or it could be the curved neck and head of a dragon. Same scaly woven structure, three simultaneous perfect interpretations - upholstery, hand, dragon - and we've never noticed any of them before.

Although some of the lower central regions are perhaps a bit on the fluoro side, the overall gold and blue colour scheme works really well, especially in the fainter passages.

Bravo!

[Spookyer (Brett)]

Andy great first mosaic effort. I have been gathering data for my first effort now for a month but have been hampered by the weather. Love the colours, what is the mapping?

[alpal]

Hi Andy,
that's looking very nice indeed.

Yep, you'll notice among other things that there's is a register problem with the stars at 9 o'clock, not sure exactly what happened there yet!
I've done a basic DDP stretch on the stacks, , and aligned them using MSICE, which I found to be better than photomerge in PS2017.
But obviously, there's still some issues to resolve.

Have you tried stacking before stretching?

cheers
Allan

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Cheers Paul, Rick, Brett, Allan & M&T

M&T I love your insights and pareidolia, very cool - did you see the smoking man's face watching on at the lower right of frame? He has a prominent chin and nose in profile, not unlike the Witch Head.

I reframed it better and captured some data on the first half last night, hopefully the weather gods will be kind this week to finish it off.

Thanks for the input guys.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Impressive Andy. Clicking on full res on a big 4k monitor... and it gets better.. tiny stars, monster 3d effect and masterfull colour processing. Excellent!

[Shiraz (Ray)]

hitting some high notes there Andy. that's really spectacular, but still looks "real".