Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => Astrophotography => Topic started by: Kenny on Mar 01, 2015, 18:33:56

Title: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: Kenny on Mar 01, 2015, 18:33:56
My first attempt at mosaics. Solar mosaic below.

Videos captured with Coronado Solarmax 60 solar scope on the HEQ5 mount with Celestron Neximage Solar System Imaging CCD camera using SharpCap2 (colour disabled). Stacked and autosharpened in Autostakkert2. Photomerged, autoblended and recoloured in Adobe Photoshop CS2.

This version of Photoshop has automatically aligned and merged the images fairly well but struggled to make autoblend work across the images so has left behind patches of varying brightness. Need to figure out how to correct that - any bright ideas? (no pun intended)

12 pane mosaic of the Sun (with x2 Barlow). 12 x 30 second AVIs.
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8592/16062859054_11f1f2d12a_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/qtqmnL)
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: MarkS on Mar 01, 2015, 19:57:14
I can see a lot of work has gone into that!  Well done.

It's an excellent attempt but I don't really know how to attempt equalisation and blending.

Mark
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: Carole on Mar 01, 2015, 20:00:51
Wow Kenny massive leap forwards.

I must admit I don't normally use automated mosaicing, I tend to do it manually and adjust the layers as I go along.  But that is very tedious. 

I have managed to adjust some of the worst discrepancies by selecting and adjusting each area individually in order to improve this particular image, it still has some patches that need attending to, but in the normal course of events it's not really the answer.

(http://cdn.astrobin.com/images/thumbs/cd5e90e13afcff856c88bd1770947332.1824x0_q100_watermark.jpg)

Carole
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: Kenny on Mar 02, 2015, 13:18:51
Wow. Thanks very much Carole for putting time into that. I had the option of autoblending the photomerged image, where it stiches together the best of each image at almost random angles, or saving as aligned layers and manually blending. I spent ages yesterday working on the latter but there is a gradient across each image/layer so it seemed impossible to blend each layer manually. Will discuss offline with you how you did this.
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: The Thing on Mar 02, 2015, 13:35:54
I like Imerge (http://www.jaggedplanet.com/iMerge.html) for this sort of thing. Canon do a photostitch tool, as do Microsoft (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/). MS ICE looks a bit snazzy, must try it!
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: Kenny on Mar 02, 2015, 13:55:29
Quote from: The Thing on Mar 02, 2015, 13:35:54
I like Imerge (http://www.jaggedplanet.com/iMerge.html) for this sort of thing. Canon do a photostitch tool, as do Microsoft (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/). MS ICE looks a bit snazzy, must try it!

Microsoft ICE wasn't able to cope with this at all. It couldn't even stitch the photos together.
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: Kenny on Mar 02, 2015, 13:56:23
p.s. ICE may work better on the Moon where the features are bigger. I plan to try a Moon mosaic.
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: The Thing on Mar 02, 2015, 14:00:44
I've used Imerge on the Moon several times, it does a good job. I would like to think that the solar 'surface' would be a similar task.
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (blending resolved)
Post by: Kenny on Mar 02, 2015, 21:38:49
Quote from: The Thing on Mar 02, 2015, 14:00:44
I've used Imerge on the Moon several times, it does a good job. I would like to think that the solar 'surface' would be a similar task.

Duncan - I definitely owe you a flaggon of beer! Image restitched/blended in i-Merge then recoloured in Photoshop CS2. Here are the results.

(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8613/16697071952_170d4ee77a_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/rrsRLU)

Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: MarkS on Mar 02, 2015, 21:56:28
Excellent!
That is so much better.

You should be well proud of that image.
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (blending resolved)
Post by: Kenny on Mar 02, 2015, 22:01:45
Quote from: MarkS on Mar 02, 2015, 21:56:28
Excellent!
That is so much better.

You should be well proud of that image.

I'm still in shock. I'll be proud once that wears off.  :lol:
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: Carole on Mar 03, 2015, 09:30:02
Excellent

Carole
Title: Re: Solar Mosaics (some blending issues)
Post by: The Thing on Mar 03, 2015, 09:45:14
Good job! Really nice result.