More sun in Ha

[Sam]

Summer is great this year, and if today keeps clear I'll be able to try and image comet Lovejoy tonight, yee ha

This image is a nine image mosaic. I'm really struggling to make my mosaics look good. The flats help but don't seem to completely get rid of the newton's rings. The stacking can be be a pain too. Registax 5 seems to be the consistent version that gets a successful stack. I've tried Autostakkert2, avi stacker (I think that's what it's called) and Registax 6.

At least capturing is a bit easier with Fire Capture. Making the mosaic is another difficult process. I use iMerge and have had no success with autostitch or ICE. What do other people use in the process for mosaics?

[Ibbo!]

I use AS 2 and flats but I cannot seem to get a consistent results I'm afraid.

[Pete Presland]

Very nice mosaic. i have not really got to grips with mosaics either varing levels of success/faiilure with all you have mentioned.

[Luke]

Nice work, Sam, love that filament at about 11 o'clock next to the AR, they make a lovely couple!

I'm terrified of mosaics myself, but it's something I must get to grips with sooner or later. There were strong Netwon's Rings when I first tried my Quark without a reducer (with the 0.5x reducer they are gone). I tried flats and sometimes the flat worked quite well for the image I took just before/after the flat. But with much of a gap between the flat and capture, the flat seemed more than useless for getting rid of the rings, I think I ended up with double Newton's rings  It just seemed that, with my setup at least, the Newton's Rings moved significantly in a fairly short time frame. That was just my experience anyhow, would be interested if others have got on much better with flats for getting rid of the rings.

[Montana]

Still a nice Sun though :)

Alexandra

[DrRobin]

Summer is great this year, and if today keeps clear I'll be able to try and image comet Lovejoy tonight, yee ha

This image is a nine image mosaic. I'm really struggling to make my mosaics look good. The flats help but don't seem to completely get rid of the newton's rings. The stacking can be be a pain too. Registax 5 seems to be the consistent version that gets a successful stack. I've tried Autostakkert2, avi stacker (I think that's what it's called) and Registax 6.

At least capturing is a bit easier with Fire Capture. Making the mosaic is another difficult process. I use iMerge and have had no success with autostitch or ICE. What do other people use in the process for mosaics?

A nice 'summer' sun Sam.  You lucky lot having comet Lovejoy in the summer, it is windy with some snow showers here today.

For my mosaics, I shoot 12 panes (Lunt 60, 1.5x barlow, ASI120MM-S) taking 1,000 frames per pane @ 60fps.  I get about 30% overlap on each one.  With a 1.5x barlow and careful adjustment of the two Etalons, I get a field that is even enough not to bother with flats, but do get some Newton rings.  I find that the image drifts around enough to average out the Newton rings.

I process each in AS!2, using 'Surface' Image stabilisation and Noise Robust of 4.  I then select the best alignment points I can and auto-fill the the rest, gives about 400 points.  I stack with 1.5x drizzle.  I am nearly alone in using drizzle, but with my Lunt 60 and 1.5x barlow it seems to give me a better image.  If I run higher magnification, then I stack without drizzle.

Once each pane is stacked, I sharpen (Sharpen+ or Smart Sharpen) and then crop to get rid of the stacking artefacts, this helps the stitching program.  Then I use Autostitch (64 bit version) and finally post process, sharpen a little and push the contrast.  I have also used MS ICE, this seems to produce an image which is 'more alive' than Autostitch, but doesn't always work.  I have tried iMerge, but found that Autostitch and ICE seem to work better.

Like all images, the better detail you can capture in the first place the more the stitching program has to work with and the better the final result.  For my images taken with higher magnification I now use Lucy Richardson deconvolution (Astra Image) to sharpen, it can pull out some great detail, but it takes too long for my 12 pane mosaics and the individual panes usually don't really need this level of sharpening.

Hope that helps

Robin

[Sam]

Robin, thank you for the tips. It's always really useful to see what process people use. I think I need to work on getting as much detail as possible, there were a couple of images in my mosaic where the focus was a bit soft and I think that didn't help the stitching. I'll give AS!2 another go with those settings and see how I get on. Thank you.

[DrRobin]

I find that AS!2 won't stack if there is cloud in the source videos. When the source data is good, AS!2 really works well and it is fast. If it doesn't stack I use Registax 5. I find Registax 6 even more susceptible to noise/cloud/low quality and will regularly produce 'crazy paving'.

Mind when I first tried AS!2, I couldn't get it to work very well and got it working first on planets. There are a few tutorials somewhere, which might help. Once I found the settings which worked for me, it seems pretty good.

Robin

[JB80]

That's a nice Sun Sam!

I agree with much of what Robin has said, there is certainly enough info there to get you started.

I use AS!2 too and one thing I'll add is which version are you using? There is a newer beta(?) version that may bring more success. I also like it for it's batch stacking, I can load up 20 avis and it just bangs them out, at the end I might have to redo a couple though individually but it is certainly preferable to doing all of them individually.

I tend to sharpen my images after I have stitched them simply because it takes many hours to get them done. Only if this doesn't work will I attempt to sharpen first, I'm lazy.

I use either Photomerge in Photoshop or MS ICE to stitch and hope one of them sticks, I prefer it when photomerge works but usually it's ICE that gets it done.

[Sam]

AS!2 was so much easier and faster to use than Registax with my last set of images so thanks for the advice Robin and JB80.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DrRobin]

Same with me Sam, at first I couldn't get anything to work in AS!2 and then someone mentioned a few hints and I read a tutorial and it suddenly clicked.

Robin