Hi,
Here is a 4 panel mosaic of IC4592, the Blue Horsehead Nebula taken with SGPro and the framing and mosaic wizard. It was my first mosaic attempt with my QHY168C camera taken through an AT65EDQ scope. I was quite surprised by the amount of dust I picked up even though it stays fairly low and while my skies are reasonably dark (about 21.3), there are enough lights to the south to cause some problems. Thanks for looking and any comments appreciated.
Thanks,
Frank Z…
Really nice Frank! This one is a tough one for us northerners.
Hi Frank,
An amazing image. Thanks for sharing.
Recently, I purchased the Framing and Mozaic Wizard from SGP in the hope of being able to capture a mosaic of the quality you posted.
In my first attempt to start a sequence generated by the F&MW a box appeared that showed 2 green checkmarks and then a red check and a message saying there was not a rotator. Previously, I had unchecked the rotator option since I do not have a rotator. I thought I could rotate the camera manually. Forgive me but I am in uncharted terrritory here.
My question is can I use the F&MW feature without a rotator?
Sorry I forgot to list the equipment I am using.
Astro-Physics Mach 1 GTO mount
TeleVue 101is refractor
QSI 532 ws camera
I purchased all this equipment at Oceanside Photo and Telescope and unfortunatley no one at the store uses SGP so this forum is the greatest potential for help. One experienced astroimager said he takes mosaic images separately and stiches them together in photoshop.
Frank if you use a rotator I appreciate knowing which make and model.
Thank you,
Phil K
Hi Phil,
I did not use a rotator, nor do I have one. I try to set up my mosaics using straight up N/S or E/W as one of the axes of the CCD camera. I sort of eyeball it when I put it on the scope (have little bits of tape on the focuser and camera that I line up for a rough start). When I first start with the setup, I’ll do a plate solve to get the CCD angle and if I need to adjust it, I’ll go outside and rotate the camera and recheck with a plate solve. Since I leave things set up for a while, this is a do once and doesn’t take up much time.
If you are generous with the overlap (I use about 20%), you can get away with a couple of degrees of mismatch if your target doesn’t just fill the FOV of your mosaic. Once I did a two frame mosaic of OU4 that was very tight with 30 minute subs, I really didn’t want to try for three frames. I bumped the camera one night and it rotates a couple of degrees and I ended up clipping the main object…lost a few frames because of that.
I did use the F&MW to set this up and had to make sure I uncheck all the rotator boxes or else SGP will yell at me when I start the sequence. I do wish it would allow one to enter the angle instead of using the slider as it doesn’t like to settle on 0, 90 degrees, etc.
Frank Z…
Hi Frank,
Thank you very much for your quick response and the information you
provided is extremely helpful. I will let you know if and when I am
successful capturing my first mosaic images. Most likely I will have
another question or two before that happens.
Thank you again and kind regards,
Phil