Custom Stellarium Landscapes.. DO IT!!!!

[Mav359]

So i had today off and as i was super bored i decided to create a stellarium landscape for my back garden.

The process is fairly simple however gathering the data that matched and could be stiched together is hard work, ive taken 800 photos today.... The other issue is because its a regular back garden as opposed to a field its a smaller closed area which means Photo stich and other similar apps couldn't manage meaning i have had to stich it all together by hand.

However.....

Totally worth it, my image still needs work (cleaning up, colours matched etc.) & i have to check the trees & house against altitude (might be a few degs too high) but i have already loaded it into stellarium and aligned north & south.

Its fantastic, apart from seeing the mess of the garden i can plan my sessions around what i will actually be able to see and when.

Time consuming & annoying to do but well worth it.

[Photosbykev]

800??? with a wide angle lens you should of been able to do a 360 degree panorama in maybe 5 or 6 images and merged them in something as easy as Microsoft ICE. As long as there was around 30% overlap between images it will stitch them quite happily. Ideally you should shoot using manual exposure to reduce the exposure variations between frames and preset the focus to avoid changes in magnification.

[Mav359]

I tried that but the problem is because im in an enclosed garden and can only back up so much your quite close to the target add to that some very tall trees which you then have to photo at a different angle because you cant remain level with them.

If i was taking a series of photos far back and on the same level then no issues but as soon as i intoduced pics of higher objects shot at a different angle all the stiching apps lost the plot.

Its because its an enclosed space

[Photosbykev]

This is a derelict cow shed about 15' long x 10' wide by 10' high, taken with 8 frames. Granted it was with a fisheye but it would still be possible with a normal wide angle lens.

Derelict cow shed

[astromerlin]

I did mine with a point and shoot camera and a stick. Ideally do it when the garden is in flower cos it looks great and make sure it is a cloudy day, with no sun out the exposures will be about the same. The camera was set on auto although manual would have been better. The stick, about the height of your mount. I rested my hand on the stick and took the images turning about the stick as I panned round the garden 360 degrees and then had to angle the camera upwards to do another set to get the trees. After that I wanted to get the ground in, this was more difficult I discarded the stick and just took images turn in a circle until I was fed up.

Back on the laptop all images were fed into ICE and I had my panorama.

edit: I just wanted to add that when I finished I was suprised on how little of the sky I actually see compared to the standard Stellarium views and it has made planning a nights imaging/observing a joy since.

[Photosbykev]

it is also worthwhile shooting with your camera in portrait rather than landscape mode. It increases the number of images you shoot in one circle but normally helps when you stitch the images

[Mav359]

:mad: AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

ICE is so much better, i want to kill myself!!!!!

[Nexus 6]

some good tips here Alan, will give it a go myself, have wanted to try a pano for a while now.

Clear Skies

[Mav359]

Ice did for me in 30 mins what I had taken about four hours to do. I'm going to re shoot tomorrow but I haven't got a wide angle lens so I'm still going to struggle a bit getting everything In.

The image loaded from ice to tellurium though was much better if not quite complete

Live and learn I guess!!!!