Veil Nebula - 9 panel mosaic - Now finished

[Roberto]

WORK IN PROGRESS

https://www.astrobin.com/7w1p07/

Biggest project yet with the tandem set up. 9 panel mosaic (3x3) of Veil Nebula complex in Cygnus. Taken over June/July with no complete astronomical darkness. Tried to take 20 minute frames for narrowband using the G4 whilst the ASI2600 took RGB in 5 minute intervals, moving to the next panel and repeating.
Aligning, merging and processing 1GB files was a challenge!

Only Ha frames completed so far.  50% of RGB done and starting OIII now that Moon has gone away.   

Full frame for G4 mosaic is 11K x 11K pixels; ASI mosaic is even larger 

Go to the  Astrobin link for full resolution.  I'm only uploading here the medium sized version (full one is 71MB in jpeg!).

Roberto

[Carole]

Wow, you have a lot of patience.  It looks fantastic.

Carole

[MarkS]

That's coming along very nicely!

I noticed your comments about the new PhotometricMosaic Script on the PixInsight forum.  Sounds like it's a great tool!

Mark

[Roberto]

Thank you Mark.
Yes, that tool that I only learned about after having worked on the above for a few hours, controls through difference in levels and gradients across panels extremely well. It is almost automated as long as the images have been solved and placed in the mosaic template using the Mosaic by Coordinates tool of PxI.
I'm imaging more RGB and OIII now.

Roberto

[Roberto]

Finished taking OIII and RGB data earlier this week before the weather turned. Unfortunately only 1hr per panel of OIII instead of the 2hrs I was aiming for.

See link for full details and high resolution images; these are too big to post here (100MB jpegs!).

https://www.astrobin.com/7w1p07/K/?nc=user

Roberto

RGB



RGB + HaOIII

[Carole]

Fabulous result Roberto.
9 panels, - what patience and perseverance, I thought 4 panels was a tough task.

Carole

[NoelC]

Pretty fantastic Roberto!
Wow.

Noel

[Roberto]

Thank you Carole, Noel!  I'm glad I didn't want to process it anymore - the weather seems to have turned for the worse now and I'm not sure I'd like to get started going through the aligning, joining, processing of all those panels again!

Roberto

[Carole]

Tell me about it.

I should have gone back and processed a mosaic of each filter and then combined them, but I couldn't face it, so I just had to try to match the processing in each panel.

Carole

[NoelC]

Taking a second look; I am in awe of the amount of planning and work this took to get the data, let alone the processing and assembling of it all. I think the composition is very subtle and the star background so sharp it sets the nebulosity off perfectly. How did you combine the RGB with the Ha and Oiii?

Noel

[Roberto]

Noel

Thank you once more!  Narrowband and RGB processed separately. Once stretched, I brought them altogether (I use PixInsight) and added Ha to R and OIII to G and B. There are scripts in PixInsight that help do this. After that it was a matter of adding more saturation and detail
through masks, including making use of a script that removes all stars from an image and leaves on the nebulosity (called StarNet) which I used to add more saturation.

Roberto

[The Thing]

Marvellous. I've never managed a two pane mosaic sucessfully let alone 9.

[Roberto]

Thank you Duncan! I doubt I'll attempt another one anytime soon! Software makes working across panels extremely easy nowadays.

Roberto

[RobertM]

Wow 51.2 hours of integration !  That's a really excellent result especially when zoomed all the way in.

Well done Roberto.

Robert

[Roberto]

Thank you Robert!  Note the 51+ hrs were both scopes total time. If you think about real time under the stars it was really 26hrs or so, showing the benefits of the tandem setup.

Roberto