Cygnus Loop Mosaic

[Anubis1311]

Cygnus Loop 4 panel mosaic.
Each panel had 12x300s Ha and 12x 300s Oiii

I originally attempted this with Pixinsight having downloaded the trial. However after numerous attempts of stacking the panels, performing dynamic background extraction, plate solving each panel, aligning with the mosaic by coordinate process, colour calibrating the background, stitching the panels with the gradientmergemosaic process…. The end results were pretty rubbish with clear lines where the 4 panels met. After a couple of days fighting against the image I bit the bullet and chucked it through Astro pixel processor. What a difference. Blew Pixinsight out of the water for mosaics. I stacked each panel, used the light pollution removal tool and then ran all 4 panels through using the mosaic function. Out popped a perfectly balanced mosaic. I combined an HOO version and then used Photoshop to finish. Despite only having 2 hours of data for each panel (1hr Ha & 1hr Oiii) I’m happy with the end result

 

[Bob Israel]

That is beautiful! Thanks for the background too! Helpful to this newbie.

 

[JimFox]

Wow Danny! This looks awesome, it's an area that really needs a mosaic. APP does seem to have some things it just does really easily.

 

[Anubis1311]

Wow Danny! This looks awesome, it's an area that really needs a mosaic. APP does seem to have some things it just does really easily.

Thanks, I’m impressed when you think each panel only got 1hr of Ha and 1hr of Oiii. I need to try Pixinsight on something else I think to see what it can do.

 

[Anubis1311]

That is beautiful! Thanks for the background too! Helpful to this newbie.

Thank you. APP seems to remove gradient far better than the dynamic background extraction tool in PI. I think that’s half the problem I had with PI. To be honest APP stacks so well I think even if I move onto PI for processing, APP will be my GOTO stacking program. It stacks different focal lengths, sensor sizes, deals with gradients with ease. It’s just gives great results every time. I’ll keep trying PI for the duration of my trial though

 

[Andy Elliott]

Very nice. I recently did a similar 4 panel mosaic in rgb. I did use Pixinsight for both stacking and processing. Rather then using gradient merge mosaic, I used photometric mosaic, and the results are much better. Have you tried that? I've used APP in the past and it is v good; but since using PI there is no going back for me.

 

[Comet Hunter]

Outstanding

 

[Anubis1311]

Very nice. I recently did a similar 4 panel mosaic in rgb. I did use Pixinsight for both stacking and processing. Rather then using gradient merge mosaic, I used photometric mosaic, and the results are much better. Have you tried that? I've used APP in the past and it is v good; but since using PI there is no going back for me.

I haven’t tried that. I’ll take a look when I get a chance. I wish they made blur exterminator as a standalone product. That works very well. I’ll be honest, from what I’ve tried so far I can’t get my images anywhere near as good as I can with APP and PS. Possibly an unfair comparison as I’ve got 3 years experience with those and 2 weeks with PI

 

[Mike Lewis]

Lovely work. Yes, I would say mosaic processing is one of the least intuitive processes in PI (and that is saying something). I have not done too many mosaics myself yet, although I have managed to get good results in PI for the few I have attempted. But the process does leave a lot to be desired. Sounds like APP is definitely easier to use in this case.

The full Veil SNR is always very instructive to see, as it really shows what the cause of all these great nebulae originally was.

ML