Nearly but not quite - another failed Moon mosaic....!!

[geoflewis]

Well I last tried this some 4 years ago, but clearly haven't learned my lessons....!! My October 2014 attempt was full of huge holes despite using a scope/camera (10" Meade SCT/DBK21AU.04) comination that gave a significantly larger FOV per frame and used a mere 70 videos, so what was I thinking trying again with the smaller FOV of my C14 + ASI120MM-s...!!

I took great care (well I tried to anyway) to allow margin overlaps as I move systematically across the lunar surface shooting some 121 videos over an elapsed time of 2.75 hours. I started shooting videos of 2000 frames, but halfway through realised that I would run out of disc space so reduced to 1000 frames per video, even then capturing in excess of 160Gb data. Each video was processed in autostakkert (AS3!) selecting best 200 frames, then sharpened with wavelets in Registax before taking into PS for final tweaks and cropping edge artefacts. Last the individual frames were stitched together one by one in iMerge to produce the final high resolution image......

 

 

 

Damn that was close, BUT no cigar...., maybe it will be 3rd time lucky, if I ever try this endeavour again....

If you can ignore the obvious missing sections, please click on the image to open a high resultion version which shows the level of detail possible with the C14 and ASI120, revealing craters and other surface features down to approx 3km diameter.

Cheers, Geof

 

[xtreemchaos]

that's not a fail Geof, its a darn fine image mate, cracking detail. well done, ive often not left enough overlap, you could try patching it with bits from another image but i think it looks great as it is. charl.

[geoflewis]

6 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

that's not a fail Geof, its a darn fine image mate, cracking detail. well done, ive often not left enough overlap, you could try patching it with bits from another image but i think it looks great as it is. charl.

Thanks Charl,

I appreciate the kind feedback. It was something of a labour of love and I was hoping for a complete high res image that I could print as wall poster. The difficulty of trying to patch is that not only do the shadows change, but also the Moon's libration likely would result in perspective errors, but given how small the missing sections are, I will probably give it a try...

Cheers, Geof

[vlaiv]

Very fine effort, and pity that you did not get full coverage.

I've looked at the full res version, but is this actual image scale or has it been scaled down? It looks quite small for C14 and ASI120 covering full lunar disc (C14 and ASI120 at native give somewhere around 0.2"/pixel - this image looks like 0.9"/pixel - so at least x4 to x5 reduced in size)?

[geoflewis]

24 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Very fine effort, and pity that you did not get full coverage.

I've looked at the full res version, but is this actual image scale or has it been scaled down? It looks quite small for C14 and ASI120 covering full lunar disc (C14 and ASI120 at native give somewhere around 0.2"/pixel - this image looks like 0.9"/pixel - so at least x4 to x5 reduced in size)?

Thanks Vlaiv,

It's a high res jpeg, so already compressed, but SGL doesn't appear to be saving at full resolution. I built it using bmp images and the final image is 276Mb, so not sure if I should even try to upload that, but here goes.....

MoonMosaicSept2018v4.bmp

The above bmp file will take several minutes to download, but I have also replaced the original image with a higher res jpeg.

Geof

 

[johnfosteruk]

Outstanding image, there's nothing wrong with a few gaps in a mosaic!

 

[geoflewis]

7 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

Outstanding image, there's nothing wrong with a few gaps in a mosaic!

 

Thanks John, much appreciated. Geof

[Bizibilder]

Excellent image - as for the gaps you could try this software imerge   This strips off the first frame of each of your videos and allows you to (manually) compose your mosaic.  This is assuming you have a computer available as you collect your data of course.  You can see how big an overlap you have which is useful, if you think things are a bit tight you can easily take an extra video of the overlap area just to be on the safe side.  Never "missed a bit" since I started using it!! ?

[geoflewis]

17 minutes ago, Bizibilder said:

Excellent image - as for the gaps you could try this software imerge   This strips off the first frame of each of your videos and allows you to (manually) compose your mosaic.  This is assuming you have a computer available as you collect your data of course.  You can see how big an overlap you have which is useful, if you think things are a bit tight you can easily take an extra video of the overlap area just to be on the safe side.  Never "missed a bit" since I started using it!! ?

Hi Roger,

Thanks very much for that info. I did compile the final image with iMerge, but I only downloaded that after I found that ICE wouldn't automaticaly build the image due to the missing sections. I saw that there is an option to use videos, but didn't realise that you could do that on the fly to check that sufficient overlap had been allowed. That is a great feature which I will certainly use next time I try a full Moon mosaic.

Cheers, Geof

 

[wouterdhoye]

Hi,  A very nice effort. I know from experience that makinga high res mosaic is no small feat. Just finished one myself. (only 48 panels) Doing this kind of thing with a camera as small as the ASI120 is really challenging. key is to make sure you have a lot of overlap every time. But more overlap means more images. Nonetheless a very nice effort and not a bad result at all. I hope you give it another try some day.

Wouter.

[geoflewis]

2 hours ago, wouterdhoye said:

Hi,  A very nice effort. I know from experience that makinga high res mosaic is no small feat. Just finished one myself. (only 48 panels) Doing this kind of thing with a camera as small as the ASI120 is really challenging. key is to make sure you have a lot of overlap every time. But more overlap means more images. Nonetheless a very nice effort and not a bad result at all. I hope you give it another try some day.

Wouter.

Thanks Wouter,

I appreciate the kind feedback and encouragement to try it again, which I will almost certainly do. I will also wait to try on a night when the seeing is excellent so that the finest details may be resolved. Where may I see your 48 panel mosaic please?

Regards,

Geof

[wouterdhoye]

Geof,

see my 100Mpixel topic ?

 

[geoflewis]

2 hours ago, wouterdhoye said:

Geof,

see my 100Mpixel topic ?

 

Thanks Wouter, I just looked and it is superb. Geof

[Pete Presland]

Next time Geoff, cracking level of detail in what you have captured.

[geoflewis]

15 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Next time Geoff, cracking level of detail in what you have captured.

Thanks Pete,

Next time I’ll take Roger’s (Bizibilder)  advice and use iMerge to monitor the frames captured on the fly to ensure sufficient overlap. I’ll also wait for excellent seeing to optimise the scope’s resolution.

Geof

 

[sloz1664]

That is a really good image. The good thing is the Moon pops up quite regular. So another attempt is in the reckoning.

Steve

[geoflewis]

Thanks Steve,

Yep, I’m sure that I’ll try it again, but I will look for a night of excellent seeing to make it worthwhile.

Geof