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NGC7822 - 4 pane mosaic done with Astroberry/EKOS/INDI/Kstars - Pixinsight processed


TerryMcK

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I have a long time project here of NGC7822 in Cepheus experimenting with the mosaic capabilities of Astroberry/EKOS/INDI/Kstars. There were a few human errors along the way like setting the incorrect gain on the camera for instance. Lots of those frames have been thrown away.

This is the result and it does show up the dusty stuff surrounding the nebula.

I chose to go for a more natural coloured image rather than the rather garish false blues/yellows that you sometimes see of this nebula when processed in SHO.

 

Stitching of the mosaic panels using Pixinsight was easy and I used the Imagesolver script to plate solve each of the 4 resulting panes to add the resulting co-ordinates to the FITS header of each pane.

Then I used the MosaicByCoordinates script to create 4 registered frames ready for combination with the GradientMergeMosaic script. For the latter the settings I used were these

image.png.25441f6cede7f4f91d758d3398d78e20.png

 

The above created a seamless transition between all 4 frames. The one caveat you have to bear in mind is the original mosaic frames need Dynamic Background extraction or the older Auto Background extraction to remove any uneven field illumination between frames. I was lucky when I captured the images in that the moon wasn't up at all apart from 14th April onwards where it was low and hidden by surrounding houses. 

 

  • Telescope - William Optics ZS103 with x0.8 reducer/flattener
  • Mount - Skywatcher HEQ5-Pro Rowan
  • Camera - ZWO ASI183MM Mono
  • Capture device - Raspberry PI4 running Astroberry/INDI Server
  • Capture location - West Manchester Bortle 7/8 with mucho light pollution
  • Capture dates - April 2nd to 16th 2021 over a few nights when the clouds had parted
  • Filters - Ha, SII and OIII

Processed with PixInsight as SHO

  • 75 x Ha at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8
  • 112 x OIII at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8
  • 72 x SII at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8

The total of nearly 26 hours for all three filters of course are spread over 4 panes with a roughly 15% overlap in the centre region. 

 

NGC_7822_SHO_TMC_BYA.thumb.png.f342fc24f6e4074795ee1820b0e6d416.png

 

I like doing mosaics but will probably limit myself to the easier 2 frame mosaics unless a target appears that I fancy doing another 4 panes or even more....

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5 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

I have a long time project here of NGC7822 in Cepheus experimenting with the mosaic capabilities of Astroberry/EKOS/INDI/Kstars. There were a few human errors along the way like setting the incorrect gain on the camera for instance. Lots of those frames have been thrown away.

This is the result and it does show up the dusty stuff surrounding the nebula.

I chose to go for a more natural coloured image rather than the rather garish false blues/yellows that you sometimes see of this nebula when processed in SHO.

 

Stitching of the mosaic panels using Pixinsight was easy and I used the Imagesolver script to plate solve each of the 4 resulting panes to add the resulting co-ordinates to the FITS header of each pane.

Then I used the MosaicByCoordinates script to create 4 registered frames ready for combination with the GradientMergeMosaic script. For the latter the settings I used were these

image.png.25441f6cede7f4f91d758d3398d78e20.png

 

The above created a seamless transition between all 4 frames. The one caveat you have to bear in mind is the original mosaic frames need Dynamic Background extraction or the older Auto Background extraction to remove any uneven field illumination between frames. I was lucky when I captured the images in that the moon wasn't up at all apart from 14th April onwards where it was low and hidden by surrounding houses. 

 

  • Telescope - William Optics ZS103 with x0.8 reducer/flattener
  • Mount - Skywatcher HEQ5-Pro Rowan
  • Camera - ZWO ASI183MM Mono
  • Capture device - Raspberry PI4 running Astroberry/INDI Server
  • Capture location - West Manchester Bortle 7/8 with mucho light pollution
  • Capture dates - April 2nd to 16th 2021 over a few nights when the clouds had parted
  • Filters - Ha, SII and OIII

Processed with PixInsight as SHO

  • 75 x Ha at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8
  • 112 x OIII at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8
  • 72 x SII at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8

The total of nearly 26 hours for all three filters of course are spread over 4 panes with a roughly 15% overlap in the centre region. 

 

NGC_7822_SHO_TMC_BYA.thumb.png.f342fc24f6e4074795ee1820b0e6d416.png

 

I like doing mosaics but will probably limit myself to the easier 2 frame mosaics unless a target appears that I fancy doing another 4 panes or even more....

 

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7 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

I have a long time project here of NGC7822 in Cepheus experimenting with the mosaic capabilities of Astroberry/EKOS/INDI/Kstars. There were a few human errors along the way like setting the incorrect gain on the camera for instance. Lots of those frames have been thrown away.

This is the result and it does show up the dusty stuff surrounding the nebula.

I chose to go for a more natural coloured image rather than the rather garish false blues/yellows that you sometimes see of this nebula when processed in SHO.

 

Stitching of the mosaic panels using Pixinsight was easy and I used the Imagesolver script to plate solve each of the 4 resulting panes to add the resulting co-ordinates to the FITS header of each pane.

Then I used the MosaicByCoordinates script to create 4 registered frames ready for combination with the GradientMergeMosaic script. For the latter the settings I used were these

image.png.25441f6cede7f4f91d758d3398d78e20.png

 

The above created a seamless transition between all 4 frames. The one caveat you have to bear in mind is the original mosaic frames need Dynamic Background extraction or the older Auto Background extraction to remove any uneven field illumination between frames. I was lucky when I captured the images in that the moon wasn't up at all apart from 14th April onwards where it was low and hidden by surrounding houses. 

 

  • Telescope - William Optics ZS103 with x0.8 reducer/flattener
  • Mount - Skywatcher HEQ5-Pro Rowan
  • Camera - ZWO ASI183MM Mono
  • Capture device - Raspberry PI4 running Astroberry/INDI Server
  • Capture location - West Manchester Bortle 7/8 with mucho light pollution
  • Capture dates - April 2nd to 16th 2021 over a few nights when the clouds had parted
  • Filters - Ha, SII and OIII

Processed with PixInsight as SHO

  • 75 x Ha at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8
  • 112 x OIII at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8
  • 72 x SII at 360 seconds Gain 111 Offset 8

The total of nearly 26 hours for all three filters of course are spread over 4 panes with a roughly 15% overlap in the centre region. 

 

NGC_7822_SHO_TMC_BYA.thumb.png.f342fc24f6e4074795ee1820b0e6d416.png

 

I like doing mosaics but will probably limit myself to the easier 2 frame mosaics unless a target appears that I fancy doing another 4 panes or even more....

Nice one Terry. Great target for a mosaic or widefield image. The Imagesolver script is great to use when PhotometicColorCalibration fails, which it does regularly. Run the script, then click the aquire from image button in PhotometicColorCalibration, and it works like a charm, not sure why though.

 

Brian

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