Day 4 - 22 Pane mosaic

[jgs001]

I had some "helpers" last night.. The kids wanted to join in, the eldest did the focusing, I think he did quite a good job, and helped with the capturing. I did the processing.

One drawback of having the help, meant starting earlier, and that caused some problems in the contrast and background brightness to deal with... the sky got darker as we got on with it, and it showed....

Anyway...

QHY5v (12-10 bit companding mode), C80ED, Celestron Ultima 2x and 60mm of tubes between barlow and camera, I'm not sure what level of magnification this gets me, but it's more...

250 panes of 1000 at about 30 fps, stacked in Regi 5, merged with ICE (the easiest way to help sort out the oddities from the early start), some tweaks in GIMP to finish.

Click for full size.

I forgot to say, getting the helpers to sit still, as I had to put the mount on the decking to clear the trees was rather challenging...

[brianb]

Very nice indeed! Nicely focussed & well processed (I know it's not easy when the background light is changing - but it's better that than variable transparency or worse seeing!)

[resonator77]

Nice one John,

always amazes me what you can do with your trusty refractor

[beamish]

Very nice John

[jgs001]

Cheers guys..

Resonator, I have to say, I'm quite amazed at what this little frac is capable of...

[dragonmaster]

Very nice. Good image

[jgs001]

Thanks DM

[markarian]

That is excellent! I've not managed to get an "early" moon mosaic yet due to restrictions of my observatory, daylight etc. Must try harder as you really get such a different perspective on the limb at this phase. That's the wonder of the Moon.

[jgs001]

... so there are benefits in not having an Obsy... I can setup anywhere in the garden I want... ... Daylight isn't so much of an issue, but changing light before dusk is when it comes to processing, for this and my 3 day mosaic, I polar aligned with a compass and a rough look along it and the axis of the mount.

Thanks very much, and it is indeed a very different view, one that I struggle to get thanks to trees...

[kris h]

Excellent image John great detail

[jgs001]

Cheers Kris

[Psychobilly]

Another cracker John ..

Are you using a red filter to help with the contrast against the blue sky?

Peter...

[jgs001]

Cheers Peter... I read somewhere... probably on here... that a red filter helps overcome seeing a little, as red light is less affected by the seeing. As I'm shooting mono anyway, and the red filter cost me £2.50 from SnS astro boot...

[resonator77]

John,

pm'ed you.

[toml42]

wow, that's incredible! seems to pop right out the page!

[jgs001]

Thanks Tom