Big Bad Moon Mosaic

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Tony, that's outstanding. It's flippin' brilliant!

What's the secret for getting it all in and not missing bits?

Captain Chaos

[Andrew]

Stunning!

[mightymonoped]

Tony, that's outstanding. It's flippin' brilliant!

What's the secret for getting it all in and not missing bits?

Captain Chaos

Thanks CC

No secret really, just lots of avi's and a slog! In some respects having an undriven mount helps, I work the webcam down the Moon in horizontal bands. I start at the top and let the moon drift across the screen while capturing. Usually get two or three avis to cover limb to terminator, then move down to the next band, again moving from limb to terminator. I usually capture some avi's around the middle (as this is where I usualy miss). The capture process is about 20% of the work when it's undriven. The real work is lots of Alignment/Stacking and cropping for the mosaic. My general rule is to have as little overlap as necessary. This usually involves a first pass at stitching, then cropping all the frames so that there is as little overlap as possible. The trick with Imerge is to be methodical start either at the top and work down methodically (usually start with the darker panes), this controls the autobrightness when you join the panes, and makes sure that the brightness is not overblown. Also, don't be afraid of restarting the whole thing from scratch if things just aren't lining up.

The basic methodology I use is:-

capture frames

align/stack (with consistent settings)

gentle wavelets (with consistent settings)

stitch phase 1 - get the panes that you need

stitch phase 2 - optimise the panes for minimal overlap

process final image - usually - despeckle, Focus Magic, and noise removal

...and that's it - lesson learnt on this one was to ensure the webcam does not get rotated if you are capturing dozens of avis to stitch

cheers,

Tony

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Thanks Tony.

Captain Chaos

[themos]

lesson learnt on this one was to ensure the webcam does not get rotated if you are capturing dozens of avis to stitch

Dozens: The full moon takes about 3 minutes to cross the ccd in my setup (900mm focal length). That's more than a 1Gbyte per uncompressed video. Hmmm....looks like I'll need more storage.

[Vega]

Oh this reminds me that that monthly lunar light pollution is all worth these views!

Was an EPO used for this? There's not an ounce of Chromatic Abberation in sight, Perfecto

[legion48]

Excellent Tony 8)

And no missing bits

Philip,

Check out the limb at around 2 o'clock. Oooops, cheesy nibble missing

Tony

I did a Moon mosaic back in Jan or Feb and had the same "missing bit" at 2 o,clock. How weird is that?

http://stargazerslounge.co.uk/index.php?topic=10177.msg108184#msg108184

Really great mosiac BTW.