Most here probably know I'm not much for making pretty pictures but I was between regular projects tonight so just before closing the observatory I shot a 16 panel mosaic of M-45. I was kind of surprised at all of the stars visible considering each exposure was only one second long. I joined the segments using Photoshop Elements. Not something I plan on making a habit of but it was a fun experiment. I may try again just to get the stars I missed across the top. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/m45-01.jpg patrick
Nice job Patrick, your stitching is great no seams! 16 shots and still not all of it, that's a small FoV. Of course I've only ever been able to image M-45 through a pair of Binos, not impressive but was a fun experiment. --- On Wed, 11/10/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:
From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] M-45 To: "utah astronomy utah astronomy listserve" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 3:02 AM Most here probably know I'm not much for making pretty pictures but I was between regular projects tonight so just before closing the observatory I shot a 16 panel mosaic of M-45. I was kind of surprised at all of the stars visible considering each exposure was only one second long.
I joined the segments using Photoshop Elements.
Not something I plan on making a habit of but it was a fun experiment. I may try again just to get the stars I missed across the top.
http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/m45-01.jpg
patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Hi Howard, On 10 Nov 2010, at 11:53, Howard Jackman wrote:
Nice job Patrick, your stitching is great no seams!
Thanks. In case you or anyone is interested here's what it looked like with all of the panels laid out before being joined: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/m45-02.jpg Turns out shooting them was made quite easy via TheSky's "Mosaic" feature. It even allows overlap between the images. Even joining them all together wasn't that big a bother. Just blow the whole thing un to 200% and then slide them together one pixel at a time. The hard part was getting all of the backgrounds to be the same shade of grey so I didn't have 16 different colored blocks.
16 shots and still not all of it, that's a small FoV.
Yeah, even with the focal reducer each panel is only 18x26 arc minutes. This time I binned 3x3. If I do it again I think I'll try less binning and slightly longer exposures.
Of course I've only ever been able to image M-45 through a pair of Binos, not impressive but was a fun experiment.
Fun! Do you still gave the picture? If so you should post it. Interesting. The first picture of that sort I even took was through one side of a 20x50 binocular using an old Speed Graphic sheet film camera. Still got the negative somewhere. patrick
Hey Patrick! I do have those somewhere, I'll have to dig them up, besides some lens flare they're not too bad. It's kind of hard to line up a camera with one side of a bino lens while shooting a long exposure without blurring. Looking forward to your next one! Howard --- On Wed, 11/10/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:
Fun! Do you still gave the picture? If so you should post it.
Interesting. The first picture of that sort I even took was through one side of a 20x50 binocular using an old Speed Graphic sheet film camera. Still got the negative somewhere.
patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Very cool, Patrick! I have never managed to take a nice pic of M45, though I've tried. My theory is that with a lot of short exposures stacked, the nebulosity would show up. I plan to try again. Of course, the sheer size of the cluster is a big problem for me; I'd have to do a mosaic to get it all in. Thanks, Joe --- On Wed, 11/10/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:
From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] M-45 To: "utah astronomy utah astronomy listserve" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 3:02 AM Most here probably know I'm not much for making pretty pictures but I was between regular projects tonight so just before closing the observatory I shot a 16 panel mosaic of M-45. I was kind of surprised at all of the stars visible considering each exposure was only one second long.
I joined the segments using Photoshop Elements.
Not something I plan on making a habit of but it was a fun experiment. I may try again just to get the stars I missed across the top.
http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/m45-01.jpg
patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Thanks Joe, On 10 Nov 2010, at 12:56, Joe Bauman wrote:
Very cool, Patrick! I have never managed to take a nice pic of M45, though I've tried. My theory is that with a lot of short exposures stacked, the nebulosity would show up.
This was just an experiment so I intentionally used only 1" exposures. Next time I'll go longer and maybe that will bring out some nebulosity.
I plan to try again. Of course, the sheer size of the cluster is a big problem for me; I'd have to do a mosaic to get it all in.
Now that you are running TheSky making a mosaic could be pretty easy. Let me know if you'd like some pointers and I'll talk you through it. patrick
Hi Patrick, I don't dare go too deep with this one because I think that will really overexpose the stars and cause flaring; so I will take a lot of short exposures and stack them. At least that's my theory! Also I intend to try a mosaic. Best wishes, Joe --- On Wed, 11/10/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:
From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] M-45 To: "utah astronomy utah astronomy listserve" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 3:10 PM Thanks Joe,
On 10 Nov 2010, at 12:56, Joe Bauman wrote:
Very cool, Patrick! I have never managed to take a nice pic of M45, though I've tried. My theory is that with a lot of short exposures stacked, the nebulosity would show up.
This was just an experiment so I intentionally used only 1" exposures. Next time I'll go longer and maybe that will bring out some nebulosity.
I plan to try again. Of course, the sheer size of the cluster is a big problem for me; I'd have to do a mosaic to get it all in.
Now that you are running TheSky making a mosaic could be pretty easy. Let me know if you'd like some pointers and I'll talk you through it.
patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Hi Joe, On 10 Nov 2010, at 20:59, Joe Bauman wrote:
Hi Patrick, I don't dare go too deep with this one because I think that will really overexpose the stars and cause flaring; so I will take a lot of short exposures and stack them. At least that's my theory! Also I intend to try a mosaic. Best wishes, Joe
I just learned about software the comes with TheSky that makes designing and shooting mosaics very easy. Since you use TheSky and said you want to try mosaics I thought I'd share it with you (and anyone else here who uses TheSky). It's called Data Wizard. You open it by going to TheSky | Data | Data Wizard. Information on it here: http://www.bisque.com/tom/datawizard/datawizard.asp I used it this evening between clouds to shoot this test mosaic of M-45 using 35 two second exposures. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/m45-2010nov18.jpg Like I said, design and shooting were easy. Making all those blankety-blank seams blend together is now the hard part (still working on that). But there's some software at http://www.panoramafactory.com I'm thinking about buying that might solve that. And it's even easier if you use Orchestrate (single piece of software that controls the mount, camera and filter wheel). Looks like it's a free download assuming you've registered your copy of TheSky: http://www.bisque.com/sc/media/p/27929.aspx Yeah, I know, all of this coming from "Mr. take data, don't do pretty pictures". :) patrick
Thank, Patrick, that's very cool! -- JB --- On Thu, 11/18/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:
From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] M-45 To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 3:37 AM Hi Joe,
On 10 Nov 2010, at 20:59, Joe Bauman wrote:
Hi Patrick, I don't dare go too deep with this one because I think that will really overexpose the stars and cause flaring; so I will take a lot of short exposures and stack them. At least that's my theory! Also I intend to try a mosaic. Best wishes, Joe
I just learned about software the comes with TheSky that makes designing and shooting mosaics very easy. Since you use TheSky and said you want to try mosaics I thought I'd share it with you (and anyone else here who uses TheSky).
It's called Data Wizard. You open it by going to TheSky | Data | Data Wizard.
Information on it here: http://www.bisque.com/tom/datawizard/datawizard.asp
I used it this evening between clouds to shoot this test mosaic of M-45 using 35 two second exposures.
http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/m45-2010nov18.jpg
Like I said, design and shooting were easy. Making all those blankety-blank seams blend together is now the hard part (still working on that). But there's some software at http://www.panoramafactory.com I'm thinking about buying that might solve that.
And it's even easier if you use Orchestrate (single piece of software that controls the mount, camera and filter wheel). Looks like it's a free download assuming you've registered your copy of TheSky: http://www.bisque.com/sc/media/p/27929.aspx
Yeah, I know, all of this coming from "Mr. take data, don't do pretty pictures". :)
patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com
participants (3)
-
Howard Jackman -
Joe Bauman -
Patrick Wiggins