SlimPaling

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

It's pretty old ms ice right enough. I'd be surprised if there are not better alternatives out there. Glad it worked though.

 

Where did you get ice from? Ms site says discontinued.

Try these two web pages ... "MS ICE" is available on both sites at this time ....

https://microsoft-image-composite-editor.en.softonic.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/20160421081257/http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/69699e5a-5c91-4b01-898c-ef012cbb07f7/default.aspx

Mike

Earlier today I tried out "MS ICE" to see if it would manage to produce two pane mosaics for each of the HSO frames ..... I must say that it was pretty straight forward and I am more than happy with the resuts 🙂

Once MS ICE did the 3 separate HSO mosaics I went into PS and carried on as normal. I am attaching my final result below.

I am not sure if "MS ICE" can cope with mosaics made up from multiple rows & columns .... but I have also just been looking at what APP can do on the video that Ian has suggested ..... impressive !!! I will have to wait until I have a need for much larger mosaics before I spend the dosh though.

Mike

14 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Problem with wide field images is lens distortion.

This does not usually happen with telescope images because FOV is too small - few degrees at most. As soon as you start doing FOVs that are larger than that - lens distortion kicks in.

It is in fact not due to lens but due to projection. We are trying to image sphere (celestial sphere where coordinates are in angles) onto flat 2d surface of chip. It is a bit like trying to show globe on 2d map - some distortion is necessary.

Here is FOV with 4/3 camera and ~400mm FL scope (2.6° x 2°):

 

Look at background RA/DEC grid - sides of sensor are almost parallel to Equatorial grid in the background, although distortion is slowly creeping in (bottom DEC line is not quite parallel to bottom edge of sensor - but a bit bent).

Same thing now with APS-C sensor and photo lens:

 

This is now FOV spanning dozen of degrees in RA and DEC - look at level of distortion - RA lines are not parallel to sides and that is obvious - on left side they are tilted inward to the right and on right side - again inward to the left this time.

In any case - above is explanation of what is happening. I'm going to list software that can address this - and also caveats of using each:

1. APP. This is payed software that is used for stacking - as far as I know, it can stitch panels into mosaics and deal with lens distortion. I haven't used it myself - that is something that I just saw (or think I saw) in software description

2. Microsoft ICE. This works like charm - but two issues. First, it is no longer available for download (at least it wasn't few months ago - maybe they put it back online again). Second issue is that it works only with 16bit images and you need your images pre stretched for this to work. I prefer this done while data is still linear. It also won't deal with gradients properly (it might correct them just enough to seamlessly join subs).

You can find download links via Way Back Machine and I think that people posted here saved versions of ICE (3.1 if I'm not mistaken) - so do search to see what comes up

3. Hugin. This should do the same as Microsoft ICE - except it is readily available for download as it is open source:

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

Haven't used it, but I think that same applies - need to pre stretch panels and deal with gradients independently of software.

4. ImageJ/Fiji has number of plugins that stitch images together. This is scientific software and should deal with linear data properly. It won't deal with gradients, but it is likely that it will transform data and let you combine it later. Not sure if it handles perspective issues.

https://imagej.net/plugins/image-stitching

I think that most of above (except maybe APP) require same focal length / pixel scale so first step would be to adjust pixel scale on one of the images (but I'm not really sure).

Thanks Vlaiv for your lengthy responce 🙂

I am working through your suggestions ... and I have just done an initial test using "MS ICE" ( which I downloaded a while back)  ... it is VERY easy to use.

I soon realised that ICE didn't like un-stretched images so I put in fully stretched versions .... and first impressions look very good indeed.

I have imported all three separate HSO mosaics into Photoshop and after assembling them into a single RGB file all details look to be perfectly lined up which is a big improvement on what I was getting with PixInsight.

I will continue to tinker with ICE and the other suggestions as time goes on 🙂

Again thanks

Mike

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Do the individual panels show the same edge distortion?

I can't see any edge distortion if an.

I have 2 sets of HSO images made by different scopes on different nights ... the 2 sets are of an overlapping area of Cygnus.

I have been trying for the last weeks or so to get PixInsight to make a decent job of making a 2 panel Mosaic frames for each filter set .... and I am failing.

When I "blink" the the final HSO mosaics I can see that the stars are not aligned properly ....  especially around the edges of the images but not too bad in the centre of each mosaic :-((( There is some sort of unwanted distortion going off somewhere along the line.

Can anybody suggest another bit of software will do a better ( and more intuitive ? ) job of making these mosaics??

Mike

Glad you are sorted 🙂

Mike

Astrometrica is still fully operational ( unless something has happened  recently! ) .... maybe Herbert Raab , who is the "main man", is on holiday at the moment???

Mike

Check out "Astrometrica" ... ( http://www.astrometrica.at/ )

Once you get it up and running it will detect any asteroids and comets in the images ... the results can then be sent to the MPC if you get hooked 🙂

It is free to use for the first 100 days after that you need to pay 25Euros to register it.

Mike

In an attempt to keep up my processing techniques during these endless cloudy skies here in my part of England I have used the services of the Telescope Live facilities at the Heaven's Mirror Observatory, Yass, NSW 2582, Australia

A few days ago I imaged the Seagull Nebula ( IC 2177) between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major.

Scope: Takahashi FSQ-106EDCamera: FLI PL16083

Filters: 5x600sec Ha/Sii/Oiii and 1x300secRGB

Processing: PixInsight and Photoshop

Cheers Mike

19 hours ago, Seelive said:

You could upload your image to https://nova.astrometry.net/upload to plate solve, it will give you the information you are probably looking for (image centre and orientation, the image size in arcmin and the pixel scale in arcsec/pixel).

Thanks for this .... I found Astrometry.net  worked really well on my full sized images .... however .... it wasn't so happy with cropped images as I don't think that they had enough star images to be able to work properly.

I have now discovered that the "Information" area in MaximDL allows me to get the FOV  for any image ... full sized or cropped in any way.

Just what I need :-)))

Mike

I am just getting into uploading images of Comets to the BAA Comet section.

I have been told that it is useful to add information about the "field size" of my cropped images ( maybe also of the original uncropped version .. not sure about this at the minute! )  and also what the "scale" is in units of "/pixel.

I am racking my brains out trying to how best get this information and I am not getting very far 😞

I am using MaximDL and Astrometrica mainly ... but I have other software tucked away that might be of use.

My equipment is shown in my sig below ... but I can add it here as well ... Scope = APM 123/737 f/6 refractor + Optical flattener , Camera = Moravian G2 Mkii

Does anybody have any suggestions that might point me in the right direction?

Cheers Mike

Two ways to do this ....

(1) Click on the "Frame" icon at top right of screen and select the method that you want ... however I am not 100% sure if this makes a permanent change every time you open up the prog.

(2) Open up the "Edit" section at top left of screen and then click on "User Preferences" ... I think makes the changes permanent until you re-set

Mike

Adam and Terry .... many thanks for the replies.

You have given some every useful information here 🙂

Merry Christmas!

Mike

I have been using CalSky to give me very accurate coordinates of Asteroids, NEO's and Comets so that I can image them when the weather allows for the last couple of years.

Now CalSky is "gone" :-(((( I am lost without it !

Can anybody please give me some pointers to which part ( or parts )  of the MPC web site will help me get this information without undue waste of time??? It seems to be a huge complex mass of info and separate sections at the minute.

Cheers Mike

Hi ...

Out of sheer desperation for the lack of clear skies, for weeks on end, here in Nottinghamshire I decided to try out the remote facilities run by "Telescope Live" in Chile.

I thought at least I could try to improve my processing in PixInsight while I wait for clear skies here!

Object: NGC 2467 (Skull and Crossbones Nebula) in the Constellation Puppis

Location: El Sauce Observatory, Río Hurtado, Coquimbo Region, Chile

Telescope: ASA 500N

Camera:  FLI PL 16083

Date of observations:   29th Oct to 15th Nov 2020

Filters: 6x600sec Ha/Sii/Oiii and 1x600sec RGB ( Total 3.5 hrs )

Processing: PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz Sharpen AI

Mike

Hi Nigel ...

Many thanks for taking the time to give me a suggestion.

I spend quite a lot of time looking for the link where you suggested and I also spent a lot of time trying to find any mention in the Aladin manual .... I failed on both counts 😞

However ... I eventually discovered that I could easily specify which coordinates I needed ( J2000) in the Edit/User Preferences drop box on the top left strip :-))) Bingo!

Mike

Hi ….

Can anybody help me?

I can enter in two types of celestial coordinates into my scope guiding software.

I can enter either  “RA (Real)  & DEC (Real)" in one set data entry boxes … or … I can enter “RA (2000) & DEC (2000)" into another set of boxes ….. whichever set of boxes I fill in the software automatically fills in the other empty boxes.

I am currently using “Aladin” to frame my planned image and also to accurately get the coordinates which I use in my scope guiding software.

My problem, despite trying, is that I don’t know if the coordinates that Aladin gives my is the “Real” or “J2000” versions …. so I do not know which box to fill in on my scope software :-(((

Can anybody please help me by telling me which type of coordinates Aladin is giving me?

Cheers Mike

Since I posted my previous image of the Cave Nebula on 5th Sept ... I have now added an extra 3x1200sec Oiii and Sii subs to my collection and reprocessed them all.

By adding the extra subs I can really see the difference!!!

This has been a really challenging DSO and I have learned a great deal from doing it.

I am happy with my final result ... it is time to move onto another object 🙂

Mike

I am attaching my latest version of SH2-155 .... I started taking images last February and have recently added a few more HSO subs to try to get more details and colour.

I hesitated posting it as I have found this DSO very challenging and have had to use just about every trick processing it in PixInsight and Photoshop to get this far.

I am certain that I can improve it further by adding more subs when the weather allows. So far I have managed to obtain 18 assorted 600sec HSO files ..... I think that I will be trying for some 1200sec subs.

Mike

Hi Steve ...

Could your problem be a bad connection somewhere either on the power supply or the connection to the computer?

My AAG Cloudwatcher works perfectly using a LINDY Serial to USB connector/adapter on my Win10Pro laptop.

Mike

11 minutes ago, Sp@ce_d said:

Is it registar? https://aurigaimaging.com   I haven’t used it for ages as pixinsight works for me On the Mac but it does a great job

Yes .... I think that is the one 🙂  Many thanks for jogging my memory!

So ... are you implying that PixInsight will cope with aligning and adjusting a collection of subs that have been produced by different scope/camera set-ups and probably different alignments???

Cheers Mike

Hi ... can anybody please help me?

Some time ago I remember reading about a piece of software that can combine images from different scopes with different fields of view ... it looked like it coped with this problem very easily ... BUT ... I cannot remember which software it was :-(((

I am hoping to combine sets of subs ,from possibly up to 3 different scopes, in the coming months but need to prepare in advance!

Cheers Mike

Hi John ...

If I remember correctly there are two versions of Starnet++ that can be downloaded for Win10 computers ....  " StarNet_Win"  and also "StarNet_PI ".

The "Win" version is a standalone version .... and the "Pi" version works as a module inside PixInsight.

I got Starnet to work inside PixInsight without much hassle .... there was a "read Me " file in the zipped download folder giving instructions how to install it into Pix 🙂

Mike

21 minutes ago, stelaras1 said:

having the same problem

can't find which version to use for PI

can you please share the link?

 

thanks

Hi .... you should find it at " https://sourceforge.net/projects/starnet/ " ....

I am pretty certain that I got it from the link shown on this screen .... it was some time ago now :-)

Cheers Mike