NGC7000 - mosaic

[centroid]

After 5 years of imaging, and never having tried a mosaic before, last night I decided to 'have a go'.

Decided on NGC7000 (The North American Nebula) as it covers such a wide area of sky (approx 120x120).

With H9C attached to the ED80, via a 3.3 Focal reducer, I couldn't contain enough of the nebula in the FOV, so an ideal candidate for my first mosaic attempt.

As the Moon was very bright, I opted to run with 2x2 binning, which of course negates the Bayer Matrix in the H9C, and gives a mono image.

10x600 sec subs on the top half, and 10x600 sec subs on the bottom half. Processed and then mosaic'd in AA4.

Not the most detailed of images, but I was quite pleased to achieve the resulting mosaic combination.

Dave

[CELESCOPE]

a bold go with that Dave , not worked out to bad ,i think maybe a lack of neb at the lower end for some reason , must try this myself one day , so thats a bench mark for me anyway ,

Rog .

[geppetto]

Wonderful

Always wanted to see somebody have a go at a DSO mosaic..

Nice one Dave 8)

[centroid]

A bit of an experiment really Rog, but certainly one to have another go at.

The nebula is certainly a lot brighter at the top end, which as that was captured as a separate image, shows more nebula than the bottom half, for the same exposure time.

I don't really think a an hour, through an 80mm scope, is really enough for a mag 30 DSO, if you are after capturing the finer detail. Also, don't forget, that although I'm binning at 2x2, I'm still actually imaging through the Bayer Matrix, whereas the H9, with its mono 'chip', would capture far more within that hour.

I guess to get into the fainter areas, I probably need something like 90 to 120 mins exposure, which when taking two images for a mosaic, is 3 to 4 hours imaging time :shock:

Still, the main purpose of the exercise, was to have a go at a mosaic, which was something I'd not attempted before. I that respect, I'm pleased to have got it 'stitched' together with no overlap gradient. Something I couldn't achieve in Imerge this evening, but thanks to AA4 I did.

Phil

I guess most people just go as wide as they can, with the gear that they have, and contain everything in a single image, which is what I've always done. However, I wanted to see if I could go wider, by joining two different FOVs, of the same DSO, and it seems to have worked.

So, room for further experimentation I think.

Dave

[CELESCOPE]

yes i tend to forget , that with me 2x2 and a mono ccd ,i can get a lot of data in far shorter time than u can achieve, point taken on that Dave , i think next time when that pesky moon is gone , that image will be a lot lot better and well worth chasing after ]

Rog