Nigel G

Seb, what camera are you using and at what ISO setting. With 60s sub's and my Canon 1300d I used ISO 1600 and could see most of the nebula around the 2 main stars in each sub. Nige.

I didn't get one with my mount, I bought a dovetail bar and made a small L bracket, having the 300mm bar will allow more chance to balance by adding some counter weight behind the mount clamp.

I mount the camera 2 ways, either bolted direct to a 300mm dovetail bar or on a L bracket bolted to the dovetail bar. The camera mounted either way can go in front or behind the Alt-Az mount clamp. As a test I mounted both camera's, one either side and opposite ends of the 300mm bar and had one in front of the clamp and one behind which balanced the lot.

I have named this the Monkey head to Horse head mosaic. It includes, Monkey head, Jellyfish, Cone, Hubble variable, Christmas tree, NGC's 2245 2247 reflection neb, IC 2169 reflection neb, Horse head, Flame, Orion, Running man, Rosette, Bernards loop, amongst others still to find names for. The Jellyfish image was a complete fluke to fit this, just that little nebula in both images gave it away. The beauty of these is at zoom the detail is still quite good. Nige.

My point being with an unmodified camera the CLS CCD filter can reduce a fair amount of light.

I just processed my bonus DSO from Wednesday night and found that it actually fits onto to mosaic purely by chance. Adding a further 5 DSO's, Monkey head and Jellyfish among them. Now I have got to redo the whole mosaic again.

Unmodified camera, I would suggest trying without the filter, with m45 I got a much better result without my CLS CCD filter in. Try a single sub and see if there's a difference. Nige.

Here it is then. For a first try at a large mosaic I'm extremely happy with this. 12 tiles 45x45s ISO 1600, modified 1200d & CLS filter, 135mm lens Star Discovery mount. Stacked in DSS, processed it ST and mosaic in PS2 I have yet to find the names for everything. Cheers Nige.

A great night last night, everything performed perfect, the sky was gin clear. Got all the data I needed and a bonus DSO. I am truly gobsmacked by how this mosaic is turning out, I never thought I could capture so much detail. Can't wait to show it. Nige.

Just reached the flame with the mosaic

RIP Carrie Fisher. I have always had a spark for her, I had a big poster of Princess Leia on my wall for years. A very fitting wreath. Nige.

To cloudy to continue the mosaic last night so I have added 2 more of the original images to the mosaic. 5 images merged in PS. 135mm lens, modified 1200d + CLS filter, 45x45s @ ISO 1600 . For some reason the tiles are not lining up spot on, stars seem to be in the wrong place ? probably lens error or something but I'm pleased with it so far despite the aligning. I'm pleased to see the dark lanes clearly. I haven't put this through any further processing yet. As soon as I get a chance I will work my way to Orion Cheers Nige.

I tried taking subs without the CLS filter, the difference is massive, now I wouldn't use the camera without it unless I was at a proper dark spot. Once modified, without a filter it will pick up far more red than wanted, sodium and most artificial light. This has to be blocked. A professionally modified camera should have a replacement infared filter installed to block the unwanted.

Here is a 30s and a 45s sub, converted to jpg to reduce file size. Taken with modified 1200D and CLS filter, ISO1600. HH visible in both. Nige.

I might continue this tonight to reach the Orion bunch.

First try at a mosaic, I have rushed this as I'm off out for a couple of hours, 3 images of 45x45s each stacked then processed before aligning in PS. its a little crude but I will take more time second try. I have 3 more sets that could be added too for a large mosaic, I might try them too. Cheers Nige.

Good luck for tonight Ken, experimenting is the name of the game, hope your conditions are good tonight. I had a fairly good night last night. Attempting my first mosaic. processing now, quite good for first try. Not sure what to go for tonight though. Nige.

I think the chequered pattern has come from a stacking artefact, I noticed it in a couple of images, if you look at Rosette last process you can see the bottom right has a clear artefact. I have been cropping very close to the obvious Alt-AZ rotation artefacts. Miss by one pixel and it plays with the processing. You can see the pattern is at a slight angle which would be rotation of the frame I clipped while cropping. On the last HH the pattern is not there, I rotated the image slightly to get the biggest crop and miss the overlaps. Nige.

And a remould of HH, I can't seem to get much more without causing noise, I can keep going with brightening the shadows but it starts to turn nasty. It's better than before, the blue fog has gone, but you can see the noise reduction quite clearly. I think I'll have a trial run with PI just to see the different processes. Nige.

Lovely Jellyfish Ken You had better luck than me with the weather. 2 images, a redo of Crescent with 1.25 hours of 30s, 45s and a couple of 60s. And a redo of Rosette with twice the original time, 30 minutes of 30s and 45s. Nige.