Cygnus Mosaic in SHO - 27 hrs

[Xiga]

Hi guys

It took 9 nights between late August and early October, but I finally got enough data to complete the big mosaic of the Cygnus area i'd been wanting to do for ages. In a rare period of good weather, at one point there were 4 clear nights in a period of less than a week. Suffice to say, that was a rough week and by the end of it i was barely hanging by a thread due to the lack of sleep! 

I'm committing the cardinal sin here of posting late at night after spending hrs of processing (for about the 3rd night in a row) but i think it's finally time to stop looking at it and just post it lol. 

This was done with an Atik383l+ and two vintage lenses, a Tamron 135mm F2.8 and a Zuiko 50mm F1.8 - total outlay just £60 🤪 all riding on a HEQ5-Pro. 

The 135mm was used at F4.5 to do the 9 panels of Ha. Each panel is 108 mins (9 x 12mins).

The 50mm was used at F4 to do a single panel of Oiii and Sii. The Oiii is 7 hrs of 20min subs, and the Sii is just shy of 4 hrs, also in 20min subs. 

APP used to put the mosaic together, which it managed flawlessly. PS used for everything else. 

I may end up downscaling it a tad, not sure just right now. Need sleep! Interested to hear what you guys think.

CS. 

ps - It's a big image so be warned. The FOV is about 20 degrees wide! 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Xiga

[GiorgioF]

Wow. Simply wow. 

[Brian28]

Great image 👍..., but I’m more surprised that you have actually had 9 nights to take it ! 😂

[fwm891]

For once I actually like SHO - Great imaging

[souls33k3r]

Good God man!!!! Bloody love it matey. How can you ever go wrong with this. I might be one of the very handful of people who just can't stand wide field imaging but this head turner has now made me question my stance. Absolutely awesome matey. 

[MartinB]

Fabulous.  Brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed.  It must have been hard work keeping track of such a complicated project.

[Hughsie]

Could someone pick my jaw up please, it’s over there on the floor.

A-Maz-Ing.

[The Admiral]

Sumptuous image. A wall-hanger for sure!

Ian

[alan potts]

Top quality work there, a stunning image and great patience I am sure.

Alan

[kirkster501]

I'm lovin' it.

[Laurin Dave]

Well done Ciaran, amazing detail!

Dave

[Xiga]

5 hours ago, GiorgioF said:

Wow. Simply wow. 

Thank you Giorgio.

4 hours ago, Brian28 said:

Great image 👍..., but I’m more surprised that you have actually had 9 nights to take it ! 😂

Tell me about it! Nobody was more surprised than me tbh. The most frustrating part is that it disappears behind the neighbour's roof long before the night is over, hence the need for so many nights. I was planning on shooting more Sii, but i was surprised to find it was just as bright, if not more so, than the Oiii, so i felt it was enough in the end. 

4 hours ago, fwm891 said:

For once I actually like SHO - Great imaging

Glad you like it mate 🙂

2 hours ago, Hughsie said:

Could someone pick my jaw up please, it’s over there on the floor.

A-Maz-Ing.

Lol. Go easy mate, dislocated jaws are no fun 😋

2 hours ago, The Admiral said:

Sumptuous image. A wall-hanger for sure!

Ian

Cheers Ian. I already have a couple of big astro pictures up on the wall. Might have to make room for another now lol

9 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Top quality work there, a stunning image and great patience I am sure.

Alan

Thanks Alan. It pays to have patience in this game that's for sure. 

[MarkAR]

Excellent work.

[Xiga]

3 hours ago, souls33k3r said:

Good God man!!!! Bloody love it matey. How can you ever go wrong with this. I might be one of the very handful of people who just can't stand wide field imaging but this head turner has now made me question my stance. Absolutely awesome matey. 

Thanks mate. You should definitely give it a go. Since getting the Atik, all i've done is this image. I thought i'd be itching to put it onto the 80ED, but i might play around with more widefield work now that i've finished this. Might go for a smaller project next time though!

[ollypenrice]

Extravagantly splendid! Beautifully crafted.

Olly

[Xiga]

3 hours ago, MartinB said:

Fabulous.  Brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed.  It must have been hard work keeping track of such a complicated project.

Thanks Martin. Going with just a 50mm lens for the Oiii and Sii was a bit of a risk, but it just about paid off. I really didn't want to shoot 27 panels in total, i'd be on this all of Autumn and Winter if i did, and i'd have been ready for the hills by the end lol. 

SGP made capturing the data a breeze, and APP made putting it together a doddle. 

After dealing with a lot of vignetting and gradients in the Oiii and Sii data, the real hard work was all done in PS. Finding the right level of stretch for both was a challenge, and was easily the part of the processing that took the longest. 

[Xiga]

19 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

I'm lovin' it.

Thanks Kirk

16 minutes ago, Laurin Dave said:

Well done Ciaran, amazing detail!

Dave

Thank you Dave

14 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Excellent work.

Thanks Mark

10 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Extravagantly splendid! Beautifully crafted.

Olly

Thanks Olly! 

[Avocette]

Thanks for posting this brilliant bit of work! I stand in awe - I had been loosely thinking of something similar after having captured individually a number of the favourite targets in that region of the sky, but you have done a wonderful job.

[Xiga]

Just noticed something strange. The image doesn't seem to display properly on my phone when viewed in a browser (desktop is fine). If i download the image and view it on my phone's Gallery app, it looks fine, but if i try viewing it at 100% in a browser (i tried both SGL and AB) then it looks a mushy mess. 

I took a couple of screenshots on my phone to show the issue (see below). Anyone got any ideas what could be causing this? My phone is getting on a bit now (still on a Galaxy S7 Edge) i wonder if that's part of the problem?

Could someone test this out for me please. Go into the AB version on their phone, click the red 'Full resolution' button at the top-right, and let me know if it looks like the proper one or the mushy one from below. 

For now, i recommend viewing on a Desktop and not on mobile. 

Thanks!

Mushy mess:

Proper version:

Edited October 6, 2020 by Xiga

[Xiga]

12 minutes ago, Avocette said:

Thanks for posting this brilliant bit of work! I stand in awe - I had been loosely thinking of something similar after having captured individually a number of the favourite targets in that region of the sky, but you have done a wonderful job.

Thanks Avocette for your kind words. 

There's so much going on in this area of the sky. Lots of targets ripe for longer FL imaging (i've done a few myself with the 80ED) but i thought it would be nice to see them all together in one frame. 

[Laurin Dave]

21 minutes ago, Xiga said:

Could someone test this out for me please. Go into the AB version on their phone, click the red 'Full resolution' button at the top-right, and let me know if it looks like the proper one or the mushy one from below. 

 

Just had a look Ciaran and on my Iphone it looks excellent...  just takes a while to load

Dave

[tooth_dr]

Really really nice job Ciarán. You had been awfully quiet for a while there so I knew something spectacular was on the cards  🤪

A great idea using the 50mm lens to do one large single panel in oiii and Sii and get the detail in 9 panels in Ha.  I’ve imaged a few areas in Cygnus with my QHY9/180mm lens/ha and there is just so much going on in every frame. 
 

[souls33k3r]

56 minutes ago, Xiga said:

Thanks mate. You should definitely give it a go. Since getting the Atik, all i've done is this image. I thought i'd be itching to put it onto the 80ED, but i might play around with more widefield work now that i've finished this. Might go for a smaller project next time though!

Hahaha you've made a believer out of me mate, that's for sure cheekily I have been looking at this lens on fleabay and I think for the price it makes sense So is it the 35 - 135mm one that you have?

Also the image looks fine on my phone mate. 

[mackiedlm]

that is outstanding - just fabulous.

[Xiga]

Thanks Dave and Ahmed for confirming. Just my geriatric phone to blame then! 😜

Ahmed, it's a prime lens, not a zoom one. Specifically it's a Tamron 135mm F2.8 Adaptall II lens. Being an Adaptall lens, you can attach different mounts, so to attach it to my optical train i picked up an M42 mount for it, plus another adapter known as a 'Russian Adapter', which converts from M42 to T2. You can see the full optical train below. 

I only found out after i got mine, but there is a supposedly better version out there. I think it's the SMC F2.5 version, so maybe look at that one instead. The one i have needs stopped down to be useable. The CA is way less in NB than in broadband though. I was using step-down rings as well, to avoid diffraction spikes, and for this the sweet spot seemed to be using a 30mm step-down ring (~F4.5) coupled with moving the aperture blade one half-stop between F2.8 and F4. I haven't tried it properly for broadband imaging, but i suspect i will need to close the aperture blades to F4 at best.