4 pane mosaic from 19/03/2021

[Swoop1]

C6 SCT and ASI290MC on HEQ5PRO via Sharpcap

Best 25% of 250 frames on each pane through Autostakkert! Converted to PNG in Paint.net and stitched via Microsoft ICE.

I completely messed up my alignment on the night so 4 panes have been left out to present a better shaped and gap free image.

I will have to take more care in the future and also grab some video of the blackness around the moon to provide infill.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Swoop1

[Swoop1]

Here is the other part of the run-

[matt_baker]

More than a year ago I attempted the exact same thing, just with a Celestron C14, so I had to be very accurate with my alignment. 

The best piece of software for the job was iMerge. It takes the first frame of the AVI and you can layer each of the next ones over each other as when you hover over them, it becomes transparent and you can align the panes. I had to have around a 30% overlap as the mount would have a tendency of drifting during capturing.

I shot mine with my guide cam that only did 1280x960@30FPS but I was lucky that the seeing that night was pristine and the moon was high in the sky. Seeing is your best friend when doing any lunar or planetary.

I would recommend taking 1000 frames per panel and taking the best 20% of those to stack in autostakkert. Also experiment with drizzling 1.5x and seeing how that turns out.

Consider investing in a 685nm IR pass filter to negate the seeing effects to improve sharpness.

Here's how mine turned out. 53 panes stitched in ICE, deconvoluted in Pixinsight and further sharpening and processing in PS. 

Edit: I also kept one exposure time and gain throughout the entirety of capturing. I exposed for the brightest area to avoid clipping and left it as that. 

Also rotate your camera so it goes down along the terminator, work your way down it and go from there

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by matt_baker