moon mosaic

[mymoon]

Pre acquisition activities- setting up, drift alignment,etc = 30min.

Acquistion - divide the moon into 16 , setting toucam(a RM300 video cam ) and ajust for taking 8000 video frames and consideration for clouds to pass  = 90 mins

Processing using Registrax and making moon mosaic= 120 mins

Total= 4 hours; 2 hours berembun dan expose to nyamok

Astrophotography is time consuming, certainly not for the fain hearted

Here is the result



compared to a single shot of the same moon using the Nikon D300 DSLR.

To fill the moon in the frame a Nikon 1.7X teleconverter was used.

Time to set up take the picture and process= 20 min using the EQ6 mount.

here is the picture



your choice.

cheers

[shahgazer]

Saya suka mosaic tu..

what method/software did you use to eliminate the difference in tone between each frame?

[IZgazer]

Assalamualikum....

NICE!!

[mymoon]

Saya suka mosaic tu..

what method/software did you use to eliminate the difference in tone between each frame?

I shall illustrate what I did. This may not be the only way to skin the cat.

First  I use Registax only for align and stack only. I don't adjust the colours or sharpening. All post processing is done in Photoshop CS2 (PS).

Second for mosaic work  I do give generous overlaps for the 16 panes  to help with stitching the adjoining panes.




Here you can see two issues;  colour cast and difference in exposure levels. The other one is I forgot to press "Do all " button in #16

Using PS

I proceed to convert all the 16 panes into B&W .



I tackle the exposure levels this way.

I choose the color sampler tool and set the sample size to 5X5

Then I adjust for all the 16 panes to have similar levels lebeh kurang taking care to choose the same spot for each pane.

  RGB=99 as reference

then for the next pane(#16 and so on)

Image>Adjustment>Levels> set the RGB values in the info to RGB=99 the same as for #15 pane (original RGB is 120)




To turn on the info goto Windows>info

Having completed all the 16 panes you can use photomerge

File>Automate>photomerge.

Then you can sharpen and level change to suit.

A TT will be most welcome for further explanation.

cheers



 

[mymoon]

Assalamualikum....

NICE!!

TQ.

cheers

[redzuan]

Sorry Pak Aziz, but I must say I like the D300 output better. Looks closer to what I can see in the eyepiece. Yes you can gather much more detail in the video stacking process, but to me, you miss the brilliance of the Moon by reducing the overall brightness like the one in the mosaic. Plus, it looks like a dirty moon...

But thats just my personal opinion... Apologies...

[IZgazer]

Assalamualaikum..

Well, the moon are fill with dust and debris, so yeah, it should be dirty (not to mention that the dust can damage your lung) . X lah bersih sangat pun

Saya bukan pakar, tapi kan kita boleh keluarkan lebih detail dengan menggunakan sharpen tools.

[mymoon]

Sorry Pak Aziz, but I must say I like the D300 output better. Looks closer to what I can see in the eyepiece. Yes you can gather much more detail in the video stacking process, but to me, you miss the brilliance of the Moon by reducing the overall brightness like the one in the mosaic. Plus, it looks like a dirty moon...

But thats just my personal opinion... Apologies...

I have seen pros using the pro body Canon 1Ds3 with a consumer 28-135mm IS for portraiture; must be for the same reason. The eye can accept only so much detail


cheers

[redzuan]

Sorry Pak Aziz, but I must say I like the D300 output better. Looks closer to what I can see in the eyepiece. Yes you can gather much more detail in the video stacking process, but to me, you miss the brilliance of the Moon by reducing the overall brightness like the one in the mosaic. Plus, it looks like a dirty moon...

But thats just my personal opinion... Apologies...

I have seen pros using the pro body Canon 1Ds3 with a consumer 28-135mm IS for portraiture; must be for the same reason. The eye can accept only so much detail


cheers

True as well...

Dynamic Range?