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Stellarium create my landscape

Nikolas74
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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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Since I live in a flat I do most of my imaging from my balcony... I purposely choose a top floor because of my astrophotography passion in order to have a decent field of view, but my balcony has walls on one side and on top. 

So I decided to bring to Stellarium my own landscape and my FOV so I can know exactly which targets are on sight and at what time. 

I have done some reading and watch videos but I still have a couple of questions before I begin and hopefully some people from here could help! 

a) how should I take my photo... Me standing straight levelled with horizon or placing my camera on a tripod and place it like a telescope looking up in the sky towards North? 

b) the famous cardinal points and the line angle_rotatez= in the ini file... Is there a secret of finding this number easy in order to match cardinal points to my photo or the only way is by trial and error....? 

Thanks for reading

Nikolas. 

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Brutha

Brutha 17

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On 04/01/2021 at 18:53, Nikolas74 said:

Since I live in a flat I do most of my imaging from my balcony... I purposely choose a top floor because of my astrophotography passion in order to have a decent field of view, but my balcony has walls on one side and on top. 

So I decided to bring to Stellarium my own landscape and my FOV so I can know exactly which targets are on sight and at what time. 

I have done some reading and watch videos but I still have a couple of questions before I begin and hopefully some people from here could help! 

a) how should I take my photo... Me standing straight levelled with horizon or placing my camera on a tripod and place it like a telescope looking up in the sky towards North? 

b) the famous cardinal points and the line angle_rotatez= in the ini file... Is there a secret of finding this number easy in order to match cardinal points to my photo or the only way is by trial and error....? 

Thanks for reading

Nikolas. 

Do you have any land marks that you can measure the bearing to on e.g. google earth or peak finder? I used Peakfinder to establish the accurate bearing to a nearby hill in the picture, then it was fairly straight forward. Some further info here, but irritating missing the image they are referring to:

http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Landscape_Rotation

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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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44 minutes ago, Brutha said:

Do you have any land marks that you can measure the bearing to on e.g. google earth or peak finder? I used Peakfinder to establish the accurate bearing to a nearby hill in the picture, then it was fairly straight forward. Some further info here, but irritating missing the image they are referring to:

http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Landscape_Rotation

Exactly was my problem because it's not very easy to find marks for North since all the buildings I see towards North don't make this easy. 

I download also to my phone a similar app that is like a compass etc and can take a picture with bearings... NORTH is what I care about, so I will try this out and make a mark, and then I will rotate my landscape accordingly to match it with the picture from the app. 

Thanks very much... 

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Brutha

Brutha 17

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2 minutes ago, Nikolas74 said:

Exactly was my problem because it's not very easy to find marks for North since all the buildings I see towards North don't make this easy. 

I download also to my phone a similar app that is like a compass etc and can take a picture with bearings... NORTH is what I care about, so I will try this out and make a mark, and then I will rotate my landscape accordingly to match it with the picture from the app. 

Thanks very much... 

You probably don't need to get this massively accurate I think. Even if you can figure out from a map the bearing of your balcony, this might be enough.

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK 1,038

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I just stood by my scope and did a 360 photo with my iPhone and pointed it level at the horizon (which I estimated). You can fine tune the position of it within Stellarium.

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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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1 hour ago, TerryMcK said:

I just stood by my scope and did a 360 photo with my iPhone and pointed it level at the horizon (which I estimated). You can fine tune the position of it within Stellarium.

So actually the camera was looking straight to the horizon or pointing up like a telescope on mount? 

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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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That is weird......

I made my panorama image , I placed in the .ini file the correct angle rotatez for North after finding the correct position using 3 different apps on my telephone , but , this morning as I did a visual check with Stellarium and the position of the Sun , the Sun in Stellarium was in another position as the visual..

What you think ?

I believe for 2 things , first to check my coordinates put on the .ink file because I think I didn't put them in the correct formats...the other is to check Stellarium time zone...

Edited by Nikolas74
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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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I am posting a photo to be more clear.....

The Sun in the following photo shouldn't be there....normally is more on the left at this time of the day behind the buildings....It should be somewhere close to my flowers.

I don't know how can i fix that......

If i could rotate my panorama image ????

Untitled.jpg.7d6afaf9d6e497ca8f2e7f38e2d949fa.jpg

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fifeskies

fifeskies 405

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You can indeed rotate the panorama in Stellarium to get exact alignment.

You need to make a change in the "ini" file

It often takes a few attempts to get it exactly right , also note that when you update a landscape the new image location will only activate after you close and reopen Stellarium even after the new landscape version has been loaded and set as default.

Adjust the angle rotataz value

Estimate how many degrees you need to adjust the value by , then add or subtract that amount from the default value depending if you need to adjust to left or to right

(I cant recall which way it goes for a + change but it will be obvious after you try once, and it is a 360 range i.e  if it is set at 20 subtracting 30 degrees will make the value 350)

 

maptex = Dec2020 new horizon2.png

angle_rotatez = 297
[location]
planet = Earth 2020 Dec

Edited by fifeskies
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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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Many thanks for your answer , 

I have found out that if i put angle_rotatez = 332 then North is exactly where it should be ,but then again i have a problem like the above.....the Sun isn't located where it should be when doing a visual check.....

Could it be on the way i made my panorama image starting from South ?

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fifeskies

fifeskies 405

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Check your location co-ordinates and the time zone, though I expect you have done this already.

It may be that your panorama is too high up or too low down

You can use a photo editing programme to move the image up or down (within the blank template) to get it exact

 

Also check you have not overlapped the image by using more than 360 degrees in your panorama , or that you have cropped it to less than the full 360 , you may need to trim the original image.

Also make sure that the image width is the correct value of pixels. I think this is 2044

 

Finally to be accurate the panorama needs to be made with the camera level , if it is off level the panorama will probably still be produced but the "horizon" will be at an angle to what it should be, high at some parts and low at others.

Edited by fifeskies
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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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Just a quick notice....the angle of my camera sitting on a tripod was not straight at the horizon but looking at the sky like a telescope on a mount..

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fifeskies

fifeskies 405

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I would redo it with the camera level , you do not need the sky in the image, just the obstructions around the horizon.

If the buildings are particularly high you may need to put the camera into portrait mode to get enough height to the panorama

 

Here is a tutorial that is very helpful about how to create custom horizons

 

Stellarium: how to create a customised landscape - skyatnightmagazine

 

Edited by fifeskies
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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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Tomorrow I will take a new image....

one thing I discovered and it's very important is that if you want to rotate the image to match the cardinal points let's say angle_rotatez = 24 you must insert the number as 024...

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Nikolas74

Nikolas74 54

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Yeap !!! i had better success by levelling the camera to the horizon and just going a bit backwards so i can get the whole field of view of my balcony.

I used Google Street View app on my phone and it works perfectly to take panorama's , i have tried also the Binostitch which is not bad.

I will try to experiment more , i think i can get it much better and of course i must check it at night to see if everything match.

You see, its the wall above that blocks my FOV , the telescope goes at the right corner side as far as i can place it so to have more of the sky at night.

Thank you all for helping.

 

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